THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


^u^. 


I  f  y  >r 


/S97 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW 


OP 


ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 


BY 


I.  NEWTON  BAKER,  A.M. 


More  than  any  man  of  his  day  he  wrote  and  spoke  and 
labored  for  an  unshackled  healthy  brain,  an  untrammelled 
truthful  tongue. 


NEW  YORK 

C.  p.  FARRELL 

1920 


Copyright,   1920, 

by 
C.   P.   FARRELL 


DEDICATION, 

To  the  memory  of  the  great  and  good 
Ingersoll;  to  his  peerless  wife  and  daugh- 
ters whom  he  exalted  above  divinities;  to 
his  faithful  relatives^  Mr,  and  Mrs.  Farrell, 
and  to  all  his  devoted  family — this  wholly 
inadequate  portraiture. 


/Y5 

rQ 

!  1121237 

i 


PUBLISHER'S  NOTE. 

This  well-entitled  "Intimate  View,"  although 
really  a  grateful  Tribute,  was  originally  pre- 
pared by  Mr.  Baker  shortly  after  Mr.  IngersolFs 
death,  as  a  memorial  for  the  private  possession 
of  the  Ingersoll  family.  By  their  permission, 
and  on  the  urgency  of  friends,  it  is  now  given  to 
the  public  in  a  revised  and  somewhat  enlarged 
form.  It  speaks  eloquently  for  itself,  and 
is  submitted  in  the  confident  belief  that  it  will 
be  warmly  welcomed  and  highly  appreciated  in 
a  wide  circle  of  readers.  It  will  certainly  be 
regarded  as  a  thoughtful  and  true  if  necessarily 
partial  exposition  of  the  views  of  Mr.  Ingersoll, 
and  a  finely  drawn  portrait  of  the  personality 
of  the  Great  Agnostic  of  the  century. 

C.  P.  Farrell. 
New  York,  Nov.  1,  1919. 


EGBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

AN  INTIMATE  VIEW. 

I. 

Since  the  passing  of  this  great  and  good,  this 
loving  and  lovable  man,  many  eloquent  tributes 
to  his  memory  have  been  written  and  spoken. 
These  tributes  have  come  from  all  parts  of  the 
world  and  from  all  classes  and  conditions  of 
men.  They  have  reflected  through  the  press,  the 
platform,  the  pulpit  and  private  correspondence 
the  general  and  genuine  esteem  and  admiration 
in  which  Mr.  Ingersoll  was  held.  Many  who 
opposed,  or  seemed  to  oppose,  his  religious 
views,  and  resented,  or  seemed  to  resent,  his 
manner  of  expressing  them,  have  in  their  finer 
moods,  unheated  by  the  fires  of  controversy, 
admitted  and  admired  the  strength  and  sincer- 
ity of  his  convictions,  the  wonderful  way  in 
which  he  maintained  them,  and  the  purity  and 
exaltation  of  his  character  and  purpose.  Even 
theological  bitterness  was  silenced  in  the  pres- 


10  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

ence  of  death,  or  turned,  as  in  some  instances, 
into  generous  eulogium.  Magnanimous  foes 
whom  he  had  defeated  in  the  forum  of  debate, 
conceded  the  greatness  and  goodness  of  the 
man  and  acknowledged  the  magnitude  and  value 
of  the  work  he  did  in  the  world. 

NO  ADEQUATE  PORTRAITURE. 

It  would  seem,  therefore,  that  little  can  be 
added,  that  nothing  more  can  be  said  worth  the 
saying,  that  the  field  has  been  harvested.  It  is 
only  in  the  hope  of  garnering  grains  ungathered 
by  other  gleaners  that  the  present  sketch  has 
been  attempted.  It  does  not  aspire  to  the  rank 
of  extended  biography.  Its  simple  purpose  is  to 
show  Mr.  Ingersoll  as  he  appeared  to  one  who 
had  unusual  opportunities  of  knowing  him,— 
to  one  whose  high  privilege  it  was  to  be  in  al- 
most daily  contact  with  him  for  many  years. 
The  writer  is  only  too  conscious  that  even  with 
this  advantage  what  skill  he  may  have  must 
fall  far  short  of  any  adequate  portraiture.  He 
covets  a  fineness  of  perception,  a  keenness  and 
breadth  of  intellectual  vision,  a  balance  of  judg- 
ment, a  strength  of  statement  and  a  grace  of 
style  he  has  not,  fitly  to  undertake  the  study. 
Only  a  genius  can  portray  a  genius.    Only  a 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  11 

master  of  expression  can  express  a  master,  and 
the  writer  has  been  but  an  unpretending  pupil 
sitting  at  a  great  master's  feet. 

Any  faithful  sketch  of  such  a  man  from  such 
a  source  must  therefore  be  a  eulogy.  Admira- 
tion cannot  be  restrained,  feeling  cannot  be  re- 
pressed, nor  can  the  flow  of  truthful  phrase  be 
checked  when  a  loving  pupil  wields  the  brush  or 
guides  the  pen.  No  matter  from  what  point  of 
view  he  sees  the  subject,  the  same  commanding 
figure  is  before  him.  All  the  rays  of  white  light 
focussed  on  Mr.  Ingersoll  reveal  him  as  a  man 
of  the  highest,  strongest,  finest  mental  and  mo- 
ral fibre, — such  a  man,  indeed,  as  Nature  bears 
but  once  among  countless  millions  of  her  human 
children. 

My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Ingersoll  began 
soon  after  the  death  of  his  brother  Ebon,  and 
while  the  immortal  words  spoken  at  the  funeral 
were  still  thrilling  through  the  world.  Litera- 
ture has  no  parallel  to  this  tribute  by  a  brother 
living  to  a  brother  dead.  These  brothers  were 
lovers,  and  never  failed  each  day  on  reaching 
their  office  to  give  a  warm  embrace.  The  sign 
they  first  hung  out  as  law  partners  became  a 
sacred  thing  to  Robert,  and  in  all  his  changes  of 
location,  from  Peoria  to  Washington,  to  New 


12  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

York, — wherever  he  chanced  to  be, — he  kept 
that  modest  little  sign  in  constant  view  from  the 
desk  in  his  private  office. 

I  entered  this  office  in  1879  as  Mr.  Ingersoll's 
secretary,  and  remained  with  him  continuously 
until  in  1892,  a  period  of  nearly  fourteen  years. 
During  all  this  time  it  was  my  privilege  to  be 
with  him  in  business  hours,  in  days  of  leisure, 
of  travel  and  of  social  intercourse,  to  be  honored 
by  his  friendship,  entrusted  with  his  confidence, 
and,  with  my  wife,  enrolled  almost  a  member 
of  that  beautiful  family  of  which  he  was  creator 
and  inspirer,  sun  and  shield. 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  13 


11. 
AS  A  LAWYER. 

As  a  young  lawyer  in  Illinois  Mr.  IngersoU 
quickly  rose  to  eminence.  In  a  few  short  years 
he  attained  to  the  highest  office  in  his  profes- 
sion, the  Attorney-Generalship  of  the  State, — a 
State  that  has  given  to  the  Nation  many  of  her 
legal  and  intellectual  giants.  He  won  wide 
fame  in  his  trial  of  the  celebrated  Munn  case 
and  of  other  legal  contests  in  Illinois.  Coming 
to  the  Nation's  capital  his  ability  as  a  lawyer 
was  at  once  recognized  and  he  entered  upon  a 
large  and  lucrative  practice.  This  practice  was 
for  the  most  part  and  by  preference  in  the 
Executive  Departments,  although  he  was  fre- 
quently in  the  United  States  Supreme  and  Dis- 
trict Courts. 

THE  STAR  ROUTE  CASES. 

In  the  much  misunderstood  Star  Route  Cases 
Mr.  IngersoU  was  leading  counsel  for  the  de- 
fense, and  by  unanimous  consent  was  chosen 
chairman  of  the  defendant's  attorneys  in  all 


14  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

their  conferences.  His  masterly  conduct  of 
those  cases  through  a  prolonged  and  intricate 
trial  covering  two  and  more  years,  is  a  matter 
of  history  and  record.  His  associates  were  filled 
with  admiration  and  amazement  at  the  legal 
ability  he  displayed.  His  knowledge  of  the  law, 
his  almost  infallible  judgment,  his  prodigious 
memory  of  the  facts  extending  to  the  minutest 
details  and  rendering  him  for  the  most  part  in- 
dependent of  the  record,  his  impregnable  logic, 
his  lucid  statments  of  the  law^  and  the  testi- 
mony and  his  forensic  power — all  marked  him 
as  easily  chief  among  the  eminent  counsel  in 
that  contest. 

JURISTS'  ESTIMATES. 

The  late  Judge  Jeremiah  Wilson,  one  of  the 
brightest  lights  of  the  Washington  bar,  said  to 
the  writer:  "What  most  impressed  me  in  Col. 
Ingersoll's  course  throughout  the  trial  and  com- 
pelled my  profound  admiration,  was  not  his  legal 
learning,  wide  and  accurate  as  I  knew  that  to 
be,  but  his  inimitable  tact,  his  unerring  judg- 
ment of  the  course  to  be  pursued  day  by  day, 
the  witnesses  to  be  examined,  the  weight  to  be 
given  to  their  testimony,  the  points  to  be  includ- 
ed and  emphasized  as  vital  and  the  parts  to  be 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  15 

excluded  as  irrelevant,  incompetent  and  imma- 
terial,— in  short,  his  marvellous  management 
of  the  entire  case.  He  absolutely  made  no  mis- 
takes, as  the  outcome  proved.  We  seldom  over- 
ruled him,  and  when  we  did  found  later  that  he 
was  right  and  we  were  wrong." 

The  Honorable  Walter  Davidge,  dean  of  the 
Washington  bar,  who  had  been  selected  by  his 
associates  to  follow  Mr.  Ingersoirs  closing  ad- 
dress to  the  jury,  said:  "May  it  please  your  Hon- 
or, it  was  understood  among  counsel  that  both 
Colonel  Ingersoll  and  myself  should  have  the 
privilege  of  addressing  the  jury  if  in  the  judg- 
ment of  either  it  should  be  thought  necessary.  I 
have  felt  such  a  deep  interest  in  this  case  that 
I  have  almost  hoped  he  might  leave  unoccupied 
some  portion  of  the  field  of  argument.  I  have 
listened  to  every  word  that  has  fallen  from  his 
lips.  He  has  filled  the  v/hole  area  of  the  case 
with  such  matchless  ability  and  eloquence,  that 
I  have  no  ground  upon  which  I  could  stand 
in  making  any  further  argument.  I  can  add 
nothing  whatever  to  v/hat  he  has  said.  I  need 
not  add  that  every  syllable  he  has  uttered 
receives  my  grateful  endorsement." 

The  Capital f  a  leading  journal  in  Washing- 
ton, commenting  on  Colonel  IngersolFs  closing 


16  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

address  to  the  Jury  in  the  first  Star  Route  trial, 
said  : 

"The  most  characteristic  feature  of  the  trial 
was  the  marvelously  powerful  speech  of  Colonel 
Robert  G.  Ingersoll  before  the  Jury  and  the 
Judge.  People  who  knew  this  gifted  gentleman 
only  superficially,  had  supposed  that  he  was 
merely  superficial  as  a  lawyer.  While  ac- 
knowledging his  remarkable  ability  as  an  orator, 
and  his  vast  accomplishments  as  a  speaker,  they 
doubted  the  depth  of  his  power.  They  heard 
him,  and  the  doubt  ceased.  It  can  be  said  of 
Ingersoll,  as  was  written  of  Castelar,  that  his 
eloquent  utterances  are  as  the  finely-fashioned 
ornamental  designs  on  a  Damascus  blade, — the 
blade  cuts  as  keenly,  and  the  embellishments 
beautify  without  retarding  its  power." 

AN  EPISODE. 

On  one  occasion  the  venerable  Judge  Wylie 
refused  a  motion  made  by  Mr.  Ingersoll  on  the 
ground  that  he  had  already  decided  and  denied 
it.  "But  your  Honor  twice  ruled  the  other  way." 
"Impossible !"  said  the  Court.  "I  think  the  re- 
cord will  show,"  and  the  Colonel  handed  the 
book  to  the  Judge,  with  page  and  lines  indicated. 
The  Court  reddening  replied:  "Well,  the  fact 
that  I  ruled  in  defendants*  favor  ought  to  be 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  17 

satisfactory  to  them,  and  that  I  twice  so  ruled 
should  not  weaken  the  ruling  nor  lessen  their 
satisfaction." 

The  triumphs  he  scored  over  opposing 
counsel  in  their  many  legal  tilts,  the  heated  and 
sometimes  bitter  attacks  and  retorts, — never 
invited  by  Mr.  Ingersoll,  but  out  of  which  he 
emerged  victorious, — his  uniform  fairness  and 
candor,  the  accuracy  of  his  statements  when 
challenged,  showing  his  thorough  command  of 
every  detail,  and  finally  his  matchless  summing 
up,  made  their  irresistible  impression  on  court 
and  jury  alike,  and  in  the  teeth  of  popular 
opinion  and  clamor  fomented  and  fed  by  false 
press  reports,  and  against  all  the  power,  pres- 
tige and  pursuit  of  two  National  Administra- 
tions, won  the  case. 

HIS  RESPECT  FOR  THE  LAW. 

Though  by  choice  a  lawyer  and  in  practice 
an  eminently  sucessful  one,  he  did  not  seem,  in 
later  life,  at  least,  to  have  retained  his  early 
ardor  for  the  profession.  For  the  law  itself  he 
never  lost  respect  and  reverence.  To  him  it  was 
the  bulwark  of  Justice,  the  safeguard  of  Lib- 
erty, and  he  gloried  in  its  history  and  achieve- 
ments.    But  for  the  perversions  of  the  law  he 


18  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

felt  only  contempt  and  indignation.  He  hated 
all  dishonest  and  degenerate  methods  in  its 
practice.  The  law,  he  held,  should  be  invoked 
only  in  the  interest  of  truth  and  justice,  but  was 
too  often  made  the  tool  of  injustice,  oppression 
and  wrong.  He  scorned  to  resort  to  the  sophis- 
tries and  subterfuges  employed  by  many  in  the 
profession.  He  did  not  care  to  win  a  case  mere- 
ly for  the  fee  involved  or  for  the  glory  of  win- 
ning it.  He  wanted  the  Right  to  triumph  and 
could  rejoice  only  when  Victory  perched  on  the 
heights  of  Truth. 

Again,  he  chafed  under  the  fetters  and  limi- 
tations of  the  modern  practice.  He  believed 
that  justice  was  often  entangled  in  the  net  of 
technicalities.  He  could  not  endure  the  me- 
chanical reliances  on  books,  the  cast-iron  moulds, 
the  cut  and  dried  forms,  canned  and  labelled 
processes,  papers  and  preparations  ready-made 
for  every  case  and  all  occasions.  Most  of  these 
so-called  helps  he  considered  hindrances  that 
crippled  the  law  and  made  it  limp  and  halt 
where  it  ought  to  leap  and  run.  "The  law's 
delay,"  he  said,  "is  more  often  the  lawyer's 
delay  and  should  not  be  tolerated."  Modern 
methods  he  believed  consumed  time,  stifled 
originality,  repressed  individual  initiative  and 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  19 

tended  to  make  of  the  law  a  mere  puppet,  an 
echo  of  old  opinions,  rulings  and  decisions,  a 
slave  to  precedent.  He  hated  the  shackles  of 
precedent.  He  hated  all  shackles.  He  wanted 
to  be  free  to  decide  for  himself  in  the  law  no 
less  than  in  religion  and  in  all  other  realms  of 
thought  and  action.  He  was  original,  creative, 
independent.  He  examined  rulings  of  courts 
but  did  not  necessarily  follow  them.  He  has 
said  to  me,  "One  Judge  contradicts  another  and 
between  them  I  make  my  own  decisions.  If  the 
law  is  not  my  way  in  this  contention,  it  ought 
to  be,"  and  on  this  line  he  fought  and  won  many 
a  legal  battle. 

DRUDGERY  OF  THE  LAW. 

Quite  naturally  it  followed  that  he  could  not 
submit  to  the  drudgery  of  the  law,  the  loss  of 
valuable  time  poring  over  State  and  Federal 
Reports,  and  while  his  library  was  a  rich  store- 
house of  all  legal  lore  he  yet  often  displayed 
impatience  when  obliged  to  resort  to  it.  His 
clerks  relieved  him  of  that  drudgery.  Never- 
theless, in  spite  of  his  natural  antipathies,  and 
fully  conscious  of  his  quick  mental  perceptions — 
his  genius  for  all  acquisition — ^he  acknowledged 


20  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

his  debt  to  that  early  study  and  application 
which  had  so  thoroughly  drilled  and  equipped 
him  for  his  profession.  In  his  young  man- 
hood he  had  read  and  studied  with  industry  and 
enthusiasm,  even  to  the  breaking  down  of  his 
physical  health.  He  knew  the  law  in  all  its 
phases, — its  history,  principles  and  interpreta- 
tions— as  few  men  knew  it.  And  he  knew  hov/ 
to  apply  it.  He  was  a  maker  of  opinion  and  its 
interpreter  in  nearly  every  continent  and  pro- 
vince of  human  thought. 

HIS  QUICK  PERCEPTION. 

His  marvellously  quick  and  clear  perception 
of  any  problem  or  proposition,  no  matter  how 
intricate  or  involved,  seemed  little  less  than 
miraculous.  A  prospective  client  once  came  to 
him  with  a  budget  of  typewritten  matter  and 
asked  if  he  would  go  through  it.  "Certainly; 
let  me  see  it."  "Very  well.  Colonel,  Til  leave  it 
and  call  in  a  day  or  two  for  your  answer." 
"Nonsense ;  wait  a  minute."  Then  turning  over 
the  pages  one  by  one  he  handed  back  the  screed, 
saying,  "You  have  a  good  cause,  and  if  you  wish 
I  will  undertake  it  for  you."  "But  you  don't 
know  it  yet,  Colonel?"  "Oh  yes  I  do."  "Why, 
it  includes  a  good  many  knotty  questions  and 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  21 

has  lots  of  figuring  in  it."  'To  be  sure;  I  have 
gone  over  them;  haven't  I  just  read  it  all?  To 
convince  you,  I  will  restate  it,"  and  then  point 
by  point  Mr.  Ingersoll  rehearsed  the  subject- 
matter,  not  omitting  the  figured  calculations. 
^'Amazing,  Colonel;  I  believe  you  could  see 
through  a  brick  wall !  It  has  taken  me  and  my 
assistants  days  to  prepare  that  statement,  and 
you  have  mastered  it  in  a  few  minutes!"  He 
tried  the  case  and  got  the  verdict. 

INGERSOLL  AND  CONKLING. 

Another  incident  will  illustrate  this  X-ray 
faculty  of  Mr.  Ingersoll's  mind.  In  a  telegraph 
suit  before  Judge  Wallace  at  Syracuse,  New 
York,  the  late  Roscoe  Conkling  and  the  Colonel 
were  associate  counsel.  On  the  train  from  New 
York,  Mr.  Conkling  said:  "Fm  ashamed  to  con- 
fess it,  Colonel,  but  I  really  haven't  had  time 
properly  to  examine  the  papers  in  this  case  and 
I  don't  feel  prepared  to  argue  it;  you  must  do 
it,  or  we  will  have  to  move  a  postponement." 
"No,  no,  that  won't  do,  it  will  damage  our  suit; 
let  me  see  the  papers."  Mr.  Conkling  produced 
them.  The  Colonel  examined  them.  Before 
reaching  Syracuse  he  handed  them  back,  say- 


22  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

ing :  "Conkling,  I  will  argue  this  case,  although, 
as  you  know,  my  throat  is  bad  to-day  and  I'll 
have  to  whisper  my  argument  in  the  Court's 
ear."  "I'm  extremely  sorry,  Colonel,  to  put  this 
burden  on  you,  but  I  see  no  other  way.  Do  you 
think  you  understand  the  case  with  this  brief 
inspection?"  "Perfectly;  as  well  as  if  I  had 
studied  it  for  weeks,"  and  for  the  next  few  miles 
he  laid  it  all  out  before  his  astonished  auditor. 
"Is  that  the  way  you  prepare  your  briefs. 
Colonel?"  "Why  not?  If  I  can't  catch  on  to 
a  case  by  reading  it,  as  soon  as  the  Court  does 
by  hearing  it,  I'd  make  a  nice  Judge  or  lawyer, 
wouldn't  I?"  "You're  a  strange  man.  Colonel, 
I  can't  fathom  you !"  The  case  was  argued  in  a 
whisper,  and  won. 

This  remark  of  the  Senator  was  meant  as  a 
compliment — the  highest  he  could  pay  to  the 
ability  and  genius  of  a  brother  lawyer.  I  cannot 
forget  his  look  and  manner  of  unfeigned  admira- 
tion, as  he  expressed  himself.  Not  long  after — 
alas,  too  soon ! — when  the  New  York  Legislature 
requested  Colonel  Ingersoll  to  deliver  before 
them  a  memorial  address  on  Senator  Conkling, 
the  Colonel  delivered  the  noblest  tribute  to  his 
departed  friend  and  associate  ever  heard  in  a 
legislative  hall. 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  28 

When  urged  sometimes  by  nervous  clients  to 
defer  his  summing  up  of  their  case  a  reasonable 
time  after  all  the  evidence  was  in  and  the  argu- 
ments heard,  he  would  say:  "I  want  no  adjourn- 
ment, I  am  ready  to  go  right  on;  I  have  heard 
it  all  as  fully  as  the  Court  and  jury,  and  that's 
enough."  A  readier,  more  alert  mind  than 
Robert  G.  IngersolFs  never  practiced  in  a  court 
of  law. 

BEFORE  A  JURY. 

In  the  trial  of  a  case  before  a  jury  Mr.  Inger- 
soll  was  probably  at  his  best  in  the  examination 
of  a  witness.  He  was  so  patient,  though  per- 
sistent, in  getting  at  the  facts,  so  considerate 
and  so  fair,  that  he  often  compelled  the  truth 
from  hesitating  and  unwilling  lips.  He  did  not 
brow  beat  or  hector  a  witness.  He  did  not 
resort  to  cheap  arts  to  entrap  him.  He  did  not 
abuse  his  privilege  as  a  lawyer  and  treat  a  wit- 
ness on  the  stand  as  if  he  were  a  criminal  in  the 
dock.  No  one  under  his  searching  cross-exami- 
nation had  ever  to  appeal  to  the  Court  for  pro- 
tection. Before  a  jury  he  was  persuasive  and 
convincing,  not  only  by  the  power  of  his  elo- 
quence, but  by  the  force  of  his  cogent  reasoning, 
and  the  skillful  marshalling  of  the  evidence  to 


24  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

sustain  his  case.  He  appealed  to  the  reason  and 
conscience  of  his  jury,  not  to  their  prejudices  or 
passions.  He  was  truly  entitled  to  the  reputa- 
tion he  bore  as  one  of  the  greatest  jury  lawyers 
of  his  time. 

BEFORE  COURT  AND  COUNSEL. 

Before  Court  and  counsel  he  was  always  the 
courteous  gentleman,  never  impugning  motives 
or  flinging  epithet  or  invective.  He  was  always 
sure  of  his  subject  and  object.  He  had  perfect 
poise,  was  always  erect,  self-contained  and  self- 
controlled.  He  was  never  in  a  hurry,  never  flur- 
ried, never  flustered.  He  was  always  at  himself, 
never  taken  by  surprise  or  off  his  guard.  In 
all  the  many  legal  encounters  he  fought  I  never 
knew  him  to  be  worsted  in  ready  and  apt  attack 
and  defense.  The  fitting  retort  was  always  at 
the  door  of  his  lips,  waiting  to  leap  into  utter- 
ance.   One  instance  will  serve  for  many: 

"ANANIAS  AND  SAPPHIRA." 

In  a  Toledo,  Ohio,  terminal  suit,  counsel  for 
the  other  side  interrupted  Mr.  Ingersoll  in  the 
midst  of  his  argument  by  asking:  ''Colonel,  did 
you  ever  read  the  story  of  Ananias  and  Sap- 
phira?"      "Yes,"  came  the  reply,  quick  as  a 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  25 

flash,  "and  while  you  were  speaking  this  after- 
noon I  looked  to  see  you  drop  dead  every  min- 
ute !"  The  hit  was  so  palpable,  so  perfect,  that 
even  the  dignified  Court  of  a  Federal  District 
joined  in  the  general  convulsion  and  tilted  so 
violently  in  his  chair  that  he  came  perilously 
near  toppling  over. 

In  short,  those  in  a  position  to  know  and 
qualified  to  judge, — those  at  all  acquainted  with 
Mr.  Ingersoll's  legal  attainments  and  career, — 
accorded  to  him  the  highest  honors.  In  nearly 
every  court  in  which  he  practised  he  was  regard- 
ed as  the  leading  figure.  In  any  important  case 
in  which  he  appeared,  only  the  greatest  cham- 
pions ventured  in  the  lists  against  him ;  no  lesser 
knight  of  the  law  could  hope  to  cope  successfully 
with  him.  He  was  in  truth,  with  all  his  other 
claims  to  greatness,  one  of  the  really  great  law- 
yers of  his  day.^ 


26  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

III. 
IN  HIS  OFFICE. 

He  was  in  his  office  always  the  genial, 
patient,  "dear  old  Colonel."  His  clerical  force 
and  the  students  under  him  were  trusted  and 
treated  as  friends.  He  put  on  no  airs,  assumed 
no  authority,  affected  no  superiority.  No  arbi- 
trary rules  or  restrictions  hampered  his  em- 
ployees. He  never  scolded,  rebuked,  or  ordered, 
— simply  kindly  requested.  He  was  silent  if 
displeased,  but  never  said  a  harsh,  or  mean,  or 
cutting  word.  The  air  around  him  was  free; 
all  the  discipline  was  self-imposed,  all  the  duties 
self-appointed  and  performed  with  the  one  ani- 
mating purpose, — "to  please  the  Colonel."  Of- 
fice work  in  his  employ  was  a  pleasure,  not  a 
task, — a  glad  service  faithfully  rendered  and 
just  as  faithfully  and  fully  recognized.  There 
never  was  a  kinder,  juster,  or  more  generous 
employer.  He  used  to  say:  "Do  you  want  to 
know  one  real  test  of  a  man?  How  does  he  treat 
his  employer;  how  does  his  employer  treat  him?" 

Interruptions  when  he  was  busy  in  his  office, 
did  not  seem  to  disturb  or  distract  him.  In  the 
midst  of  dictation  of  correspondence  or  argu- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  27 

ment  he  would  welcome  a  caller  and  after  a 
chat  or  "interview"  resume  his  dictation  at  the 
point  of  leaving  it.  Sometimes  an  hour,  a  day, 
or  even  days,  would  intervene;  he  did  not  lose 
the  thread  but  went  on  weaving  as  though  the 
loom  had  not  for  an  instant  stopped.  He  shut 
out  no  visitor,  although  his  clerks  of  their  own 
motion  excluded  many  a  freak  or  crank,  notwith- 
standing his  repeated  request  to  deny  no  decent 
person  audience. 
^  The  Colonel  was  fond  of  bright  newspaper 

^    men.     He  liked  to  answer  questions.     Inter- 
viewers flocked  to  him.     They  were  always  wel- 
comed and  never  disappointed  if  they  asked 
sensible  and  proper  questions.     "Fire  away!" 
^  was  his  cheery  invitation^  and  to  their  queries 
.   a  flood  of  wit,  wisdom,  humor,  philosophy,  logic 
u  and  sense  would  pour  out  as  from  a  strong  f oun- 
i    tain.     The  files  of  many  metropolitan  journals 
^  were  enriched  by  these  spontaneous  effusions. 

HIS  DAILY  MAIL. 

His  daily  mail  was  heavy.  All  sorts  of 
people  wrote  to  him  on  all  conceivable  subjects. 
This  correspondence  was  sifted;  only  a  tithe 
reached  his  eye, — those  letters  absolutely  requir- 
ing his  attention.    Requests  to  lecture  and  ap- 


28  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

peals  for  pecuniary  help  were  of  course  multi- 
tudinous. Many  were  granted,  though  of  neces- 
sity more  were  denied.  Aside  from  his  large 
business  and  professional  correspondence,  let- 
ters on  religious  questions  poured  in  upon  him. 
Advice,  argument  and  appeal,  more  or  less  sin- 
cere, and  sad  to  say,  abuse,  slander  and  defama- 
tion of  the  most  scurrilous  kind,  were  not  un- 
common, while  now  and  then  anonymous  threats 
of  his  life  were  received.  Whenever  possible, 
and  wherever  sincerity  and  intelligence  were 
manifest  and  abuse  and  malice  absent,  these 
letters  received  reply.  They  were  copied,  and 
the  letter-books  containing  these  replies  would 
make  a  rich  mine  of  material  for  extended 
biography. 

SENSE  OF  LOCALITY. 

He  had  little  order  in  the  care  of  papers ;  hi& 
desk  was  for  the  most  part  in  confusion.  And 
yet  he  had  a  method  of  his  own,  with  all  the 
apparent  disorder.  When  his  desk  reached  the 
limit  of  congestion,  letters  and  papers  were  care- 
fully collected,  classified  and  filed  for  him  and 
the  coast  thus  cleared.  "I  put  that  paper  just 
where  I  wanted  it,  why  did  you  remove  it?"  was 
his  usual  comment  on  this  desk-clearing  pro- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  29 

cess.  His  sense  of  locality  was  so  keen  that 
many  times  I  have  seen  him  produce  a  needed 
document  from  a  large  bundle,  or  a  letter  from 
beneath  a  scattered  pile,  without  a  moment's 
hesitation.  He  could  have  found  that  celebrat- 
ed needle  if  he  had  had  anything  to  do  with  put- 
ting it  in  the  hay.  His  volume  of  Shakespeare 
usually  served  as  a  paper-weight  on  his  office 
desk.  It  was  always  in  sight  and  often  taken 
up  even  in  busy  hours.  He  needed  for  it  no 
index  or  concordance.  Page,  column  and  line 
were  instantly  turned  to.  He  has  said  to  me, 
"I  know  where  to  find  that  passage  in  Hamlet; 
it  is  on  page  432,  on  the  right  hand  side,  left 
hand  column,  and  at  the  bottom  of  the  column." 
Equally  remarkable  was  his  far-reaching  ac- 
curacy of  vision.  His  eagle  eye  could  take  in 
more  at  a  single  glance  than  most  men's  after 
close  inspection.  Very  little  going  on  around 
him  escaped  his  notice.  Once,  in  a  trial  out 
West,  he  was  to  open  the  case.  Counsel  for  the 
other  side  sat  to  the  front  and  left  of  him,  sev- 
eral feet  removed,  going  over  his  notes  prior 
to  oral  presentation.  The  Colonel's  quick  eye 
caught  the  paper,  and  as  he  assured  me,  with- 
out intention  or  purpose — before  he  could  help 
it — he  had  taken  in  several  points  of  his  adver- 


80  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

sary's  argument.  He  was  bothered,  he  said,  in 
making  his  opening,  by  the  necessity  of  avoid- 
ing the  suspicion  that  he  had  in  any  way  gained 
possession  of  his  opponent's  brief.  He  made  no 
unfair  use  of  the  accident.  In  fact,  he  said,  the 
knowledge  hampered  more  than  helped  him. 

A  STAINLESS  RECORD. 

Nothing  was,  nothing  could  be,  further  from 
Mr.  Ingersoll  than  deceit,  indirection  or  double- 
dealing.  He  was  the  very  soul  of  truth,  of 
honor,  and  of  candor.  He  was,  indeed,  a  mod- 
ern Bayard,  "a  knight  without  fear  and  with- 
out reproach.''  His  escutcheon  was  unstained, 
and  never  in  any  court  was  his  veracity  im- 
peached, or  his  professional  honor  successfully 
assailed.  He  was  high-souled,  high-minded, 
high-acting  and  incapable  of  a  grovelling 
thought,  or  a  mean  or  low  initiative.  His  pro- 
fessional antagonists,  everywhere  encountered, 
admitted  that  he  always  fought  in  the  open,  and 
were  often  surprised  at  the  large  admissions 
and  generous  concessions  he  made.  His  clients 
sometimes  quaked  as  they  feared  he  was  giving 
away  their  case.  He  was  not.  The  outcome 
proved  that  his  method  was  the  highest  art,  the 
wisest  wisdom. 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  81 


AN  ORACLE. 

His  intuitions  were  like  a  woman's — often 
infallible.  In  many  an  instance  they  were  as 
unerring  as  his  judgment  was  sound, — amount- 
ing almost  to  prophecy  fulfilled.  On  that  fatal 
morning  in  July  when  the  assassin's  bullet  laid 
low  the  lamented  Garfield,  Mr.  Ingersoll  was 
one  of  the  first  at  the  stricken  President's  side. 
He  said  to  me:  "I  know  he  will  not  live.  I 
feel  it.  He  may  rally,  and  linger  a  few  days, 
but  he  cannot  recover."  Despite  all  that  human 
skill  could  do,  all  means  that  science  could 
employ,  or  all  that  Christendom  on  its  knees 
could  implore,  the  end  came. 

It  was  this  gift  or  endowment,  added  to  his 
clear  judgment  and  knowledge  of  human  nature, 
that  made  him  the  seer  and  prophet  he  really 
was.  This  rare  combination  in  him  was  recog- 
nized by  many  who  sought  his  advice  and  coun- 
sel. Statesmen,  politicians,  men  of  affairs  in 
public  and  private  life  resorted  to  him  as  to  an 
oracle,  and  his  "guesses,"  as  he  called  them, 
frequently  came  true.  He  never  claimed  to  have 
soothsaying  or  clairvoyant  powers, — for  he  was 
absolutely  without  a  superstition — but  he  was 


82  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

none  the  less  one  whose  predictions  were  often 
justified  by  the  events. 

PRINCELY  GENEROSITY. 

He  extended  to  young  lawyers  and  students 
of  the  law  a  most  encouraging  hand.  He  liked 
young  men.  He  helped  them  by  counsel,  by 
opening  doors  of  opportunity,  and  with  pecuni- 
ary aid.  Many  a  new-fledged  attorney  and 
many  an  aged,  stranded  one  "on  his  uppers," 
as  he  would  say,  went  from  his  presence  with  a 
gladder  heart  and  fuller  pocket.  A  hundred 
dollar  bill  was  a  frequent  gift  from  his  open 
hand,  to  say  not  a  word  of  the  thousands  scat- 
tered in  larger  and  smaller  sums.  He  gave  his 
advice  freely  to  hundreds, — especially  to  the 
widow,  the  poor  and  defenceless,  and  tried  many 
a  case  to  a  happy  conclusion,  not  only  without 
a  fee,  but  himself  paying  all  costs  and  disburse- 
ments. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  seldom  richly 
remunerated  in  the  celebrated  cases  undertaken 
by  him.  The  Star  Route  trials  cost  him  more 
than  he  received  in  actual  compensation.  Ho 
cared  too  little  for  money  to  insist  even  on  his 
rights.  His  ofRce  books  were  filled  with  ac- 
counts never  collected,  with  charges  never  paid, 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  33 

and  yet  this  did  not  check  the  flow  of  his  extrav- 
agant generosity.  He  loved  to  give.  He  was 
princely  in  giving.  In  one  case  where  a  thirty- 
thousand  dollar  fee  came  to  him  he  instantly 
gave  half  of  it  to  a  young  assistant  to  whom 
two  or  three  thousand  dollars  would  have  been 
an  ample  and  satisfactory  return  for  the  service 
rendered.  In  another  case,  on  receiving  a  fee  of 
fifteen  thousand  dollars,  he  immediately  wrote  a 
check  for  one  third  of  the  amount  to  the  friend 
who  had  simply  urged  his  selection  as  the  best 
lawyer  for  the  case.  The  unexpected  gift  en- 
abled this  friend  to  lift  a  mortgage  that  had  long 
encumbered  her  home. 


34  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

IV. 

AS  ORATOR  AND  WRITER. 

Here  his  fame  is  fixed  beyond  all  cavil,  all 
criticism,  all  calumny.  His  Christian  censors 
admitted  it.  His  fair-minded  contemporaries 
in  every  intellectual  field  conceded  it.  It  was 
world-wide.  Appeals  came  to  him  from  nearly 
every  civilized  country  for  a  visit  and  a  series 
of  addresses  and  lectures.  An  offer  from  Aus- 
tralia guaranteed  him  one  thousand  dollars  a 
night  for  as  many  nights  as  he  chose  to  speak, 
and  all  expenses  of  himself  and  family  paid. 
He  was  unable,  though  not  unwilling,  to  accept 
the  offer.  As  a  platform  orator  he  was  great. 
He  had  few  if  any  peers  in  that  realm.  The 
judgment  of  his  rivals  accords  him  this  pre- 
eminence. 

Henry  Ward  Beecher,  who  certainly  may  be 
quoted  as  competent  authority,  once  said  in  in- 
troducing him  to  a  Brooklyn  audience,  "He  is 
the  most  brilliant  speaker  of  the  English  tongue 
of  aU  men  on  this  globe."  The  lamented  Gar- 
field, who  himself  was  a  distinguished  orator, 
once  wrote  to  Mr.  Ingersoll,  who  spoke  for  him 
in  his  campaign  for  the  Presidency:  "I  have 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  85 

J  followed  with  intense  interest  your  brilliant 
campaign  in  my  behalf.  You  have  appeared  to 
me  like  a  pillar  of  cloud  by  day  and  fire  by  night. 
Your  path  has  been  one  broad  band  of  blazing 
light.  I  give  you  my  profoundest  admiration 
and  gratitude."  In  the  famous  Davis  Will  Case 
in  Montana  both  Judge  and  prosecuting  attor- 
ney cautioned  the  jury  to  be  on  their  guard  lest 
they  be  carried  away  by  Colonel  Ingersoll's  elo- 
quence, ^'which/'  the  attorney  remarked,  "is 
famed  over  two  continents  and  in  the  islands  of 
the  seas,  rivalling  that  of  Demosthenes  and 
transcending  the  oratory  of  Greece  and  Rome." 
And  this  warning  was  not  an  infrequent  one 
to  juries  before  whom  Mr.  Ingersoll  appeared 

r   as  advocate. 

LARGE  LECTURE  RECEIPTS. 

^  His  audiences  on  his  frequent  lecture  tours 
were  nearly  everywhere  large  and  enthusiastic. 
"Standing  Room  Only"  was  the  sign  often  dis- 
played at  the  entrance  of  the  hall  or  theatre 
where  he  was  to  speak.  His  lecture  receipts 
v/ere  extraordinary.    In  a  trip  West  at  one  time 

^  they  amounted  to  more  than  fifty  thousand  dol- 
lars, net,  in  one  month.  Boston,  New  York, 
Chicago  and  San  Francisco  always  gave  him  a 


86  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

vrarm  and  sympathetic  welcome.  Two  or  three 
thousand  dollars  for  a  single  lecture  was  not  an 
tinusual  sum  received  from  Boston,  while  one 
great  assemblage  in  the  Auditorium  at  Chicago 
yielded  exactly  seven  thousand  and  one  dollars, 
— the  highest  sum,  we  may  well  believe,  ever 
realized  for  a  single  lecture  in  the  history  of  the 
platform. 

The  most  thoughtful,  intelligent  and  highly 
cultivated  people  of  a  community  thronged  to 
hear  him.  Even  hearers  who  hes^itated  to  ac- 
cept all  he  said  could  not  help  admiring  the  way 
he  said  it,  and  if  not  convinced,  never  left  the 
auditorium  but  in  a  thoughtful  mood.  In- 
stances were  common  where  men  and  women 
travelled  long  distances  to  listen  to  his  eloquent 
words,  and  one  ardent  admirer — a  young  law- 
yer from  Boston — followed  him  thousands  of 
miles  that  he  might  not  lose  an  opportunity  of 
hearing  him. 

GREAT  SPEECHES. 

Most  Americans  are  familiar  with  his  speech 
nominating  Mr.  Blaine  for  the  Presidency,  in 
which  he  invested  that  brilliant  statesman  with 
the  title  "Plumed  Knight,"  a  sobriquet  that  re- 
mained with  him  to  the  end  of  his  career.    His 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  37 

great  speech  at  the  ^'Grant  Banquet,"  his  thrill- 
ing epic  "A  Vision  of  War,"  or  'The  Past  Rises 
Before  me  Like  a  Dream,"  delivered  at  a 
soldiers'  reunion  in  Indianapolis;  his  wonder- 
ful "Decoration  Day  Oration,"  in  New  York, 
his  tribute  to  his  brother  Ebon,  his  matchless 
memorial  to  his  friend  and  associate,  Roscoe 
Conkling,  and  the  laureate  crown  he  laid  on  the 
tomb  of  his  friend  and  leader,  the  martyred 
Lincoln,  together  with  many  other  eulogies  of 
the  noble  dead  that  sprang  from  his  generous 
and  passionately  patriotic  heart,  are  to-day  the 
treasured  possessions  of  his  countrymen.  His 
lips  dropped  polished  pearls  that  will  adorn  and 
enrich  the  language  of  his  day  and  of  all  time. 


A  MEMORABLE  SCENE. 

The  tribute  paid  by  Mr.  Ingersoll  to  his  be- 
loved brother  Ebon  was  everywhere  acknow- 
ledged to  be  the  most  profoundly  tender  and 
beautiful  in  English  literature.  It  has  become 
classic.  The  scene  of  its  utterance,  in  its  whole 
setting,  was  solemnly  dramatic.  Around  the 
bier,  gathered  as  mourners,  were  many  of  the 
first  men  of  the  Nation.  They  had  come,  not 
only  in  sympathy  with  the  grief -stricken  brother, 


38  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

but  to  mingle  their  tears  with  his  in  homage  of 
their  late  friend  and  associate.  The  Hon.  Ebon 
C.  Ingersoll  was  well  known  in  social  and  offi- 
cial circles  in  Washington.  He  was  a  Member 
of  Congress,  a  staunch  Republican  and  true 
patriot,  and  well  and  faithfully  served  his  Illin- 
ois constituency.  He  was  a  wise  legislator,  a 
man  of  unbending  integrity,  a  true  and  loyal 
friend.  As  a  lawyer  he  was  able  and  well  equip- 
ped, and  while  a  forceful  speaker,  was  not  as 
"dearly  parted"  as  his  brilliant  brother,  al- 
though he  was  a  wise  and  safe  counsellor.  In 
religious  belief  he  was  a  firm  Agnostic,  an 
ardent  supporter  of  Robert  in  all  campaigns 
against  superstition  and  fanaticism,  and  he 
gloried  in  his  fame  as  the  greatest  orator  of  the 
day.  As  Mr.  Ingersoll  has  said:  "It  was  from 
his  lips  I  heard  the  first  words  of  encourage- 
ment and  praise."  Ebon  C.  was  a  worthy  com- 
panion of  Robert  G.,  and  an  honor  to  the  family 
whose  name  he  bore. 

The  following  vivid  description  of  the  scene 
attending  the  delivery  of  the  Tribute,  and  of  the 
funeral  obsequies,  is  taken  from  the  National 
Republican  of  Washington,  published  the  day 
after  the  funeral : 

"The  funeral  of  the  Hon.  E.  C.  Ingersoll 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  39 

took  place  yesterday  afternoon  at  four  o'clock, 
from  his  late  residence,  1403  K  Street.  The 
spacious  parlors  were  filled  to  overflowing,  and 
hundreds  were  unable  to  obtain  admittance. 
Among  those  who  were  present  to  pay  their 
homage  to  the  distinguished  and  beloved  dead 
were  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  Sherman,  As- 
sistant-Secretary of  the  Treasury  Hawley,  Sen- 
ators Blaine,  Voorhees,  Paddock,  David  Davis, 
John  A.  Logan,  the  Hon.  William  M.  Morrison, 
Hon.  William  M.  Springer,  Hon.  Thomas  A. 
Boyd,  Governor  Pound,  Hon.  J.  R.  Thomas,  Hon. 
Thomas  J.  Henderson,  Hon.  Jeremiah  Wilson, 
Adlai  E.  Stevenson,  Col,  Ward  H.  Lamon,  Col. 
James  Fishback,  General  Farnsworth,  General 
Robert  C.  Schenck,  General  Jeffries,  General 
Williams  and  the  Hon.  H.  C.  Burchard,  Judge 
Shellbarger,  General  Birney,  Governor  Lowe, 
Acting  Commissioner  of  Internal  Revenue  H.  C. 
Rogers,  General  Williamson  of  the  Land  Office 
and  a  great  many  other  prominent  members  of 
the  bar  and  also  a  large  number  of  Illinoisans 
were  present.  It  was  the  largest  gathering  of 
distinguished  persons  assembled  at  a  funeral 
since  that  of  Chief -Justice  Chase. 

"The  only  ceremony  at  the  house,  other  than 
the  viewing  of  the  remains,  was  a  most  affect- 


40  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

ing,  pathetic  and  touching  address  by  Col. 
Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  brother  of  the  deceased. 
When  he  began  to  read  his  eloquent  characteriza- 
tion of  the  dead  man  his  eyes  at  once  filled  with 
tears.  He  tried  to  hide  them,  but  he  could  not 
do  it,  and  finally  he  bowed  his  head  upon  the 
dead  man*s  coffin  in  uncontrollable  grief.  It 
was  only  after  some  delay,  and  the  greatest  ef- 
forts at  self-mastery,  that  Colonel  Ingersoll  was 
able  to  finish  reading  his  address.  When  he  had 
ceased  speaking,  the  members  of  the  bereaved 
family  approached  the  casket  and  looked  upon 
the  form  which  it  contained,  for  the  last  time. 
The  scene  was  heartrending.  The  devotion  of 
all  connected  with  the  household  excited  the  sym- 
pathy of  all,  and  there  was  not  a  dry  eye  to  be 
seen.  The  pall-bearers — Senator  William  B. 
Allison,  Senator  James  G.  Blaine,  Senator  David 
Davis,  Senator  Daniel  Voohees,  Representative 
James  A.  Garfield,  Senator  A.  S.  Paddock,  Rep- 
resentative Thomas  Q.  Boyd,  of  Illinois,  the  Hon. 
Ward  H.  Lamon,  ex-Congressman  Jere  Wilson, 
and  Representative  Adlai  E.  Stevenson  of  Illin- 
ois— then  bore  the  remains  to  the  hearse,  and  the 
lengthy  cortege  proceeded  to  the  Oak  Hill  Ceme- 
tery, where  the  remains  were  interred,  in  the 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  41 

presence  of  the  family  and  friends  without  fur- 
ther ceremony." 

THE  TRIBUTE. 

**Dear  Friends :  I  am  going  to  do  that  which 
the  dead  oft  promised  he  would  do  for  me. 

"The  loved  and  loving  brother,  husband, 
father,  friend,  died  where  manhood's  morning 
almost  touches  noon,  and  while  the  shadows  still 
were  falling  toward  the  west. 

"He  had  not  passed  on  life's  highway  the 
stone  that  marks  the  highest  point;  but  being 
weary  for  a  moment,  he  lay  down  by  the  wayside, 
and  using  his  burden  for  a  pillow,  fell  into  that 
dreamless  sleep  that  kisses  down  his  eyelids 
still.  While  yet  in  love  with  life  and  raptured 
with  the  world,  he  passed  to  silence  and  pathetic 
dust. 

"Yet,  after  all,  it  may  be  best,  just  in  the 
happiest,  sunniest  hour  of  all  the  voyage,  while 
eager  winds  are  kissing  every  sail,  to  dash 
against  the  unseen  rock,  and  in  an  instant  hear 
the  billows  roar  above  a  sunken  ship.  For 
whether  in  mid  sea  or  'mong  the  breakers  of  the 
farther  shore,  a  wreck  at  last  must  mark  the 
end  of  each  and  all.  And  every  life,  no  matter 
if  its  every  hour  is  rich  with  love  and  every 


J 


42  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

moment  jewelled  with  a  joy,  will,  at  its  close, 
become  a  tragedy  as  sad  and  deep  and  dark  as 
can  be  woven  of  the  warp  and  woof  of  mystery 
and  death. 

"This  brave  and  tender  man  in  every  storm 
of  life  was  oak  and  rock;  but  in  the  sunshine 
he  was  vine  and  flower.  He  was  the  friend  of 
all  heroic  souls.  He  climbed  the  heights,  and 
left  all  superstitions  far  below,  while  on  his  fore- 
head fell  the  golden  dawning  of  the  grander  day. 

"He  loved  the  beautiful,  and  was  with  color, 
form,  and  music  touched  to  tears.  He  sided 
with  the  weak,  the  poor  and  wronged,  and  lov- 
ingly gave  alms.  With  loyal  heart  and  with 
the  purest  hands  he  faithfully  discharged  all 
public  trusts. 

"He  was  a  worshipper  of  liberty,  a  friend  of 
the  oppressed.  A  thousand  times  I  have  heard 
him  quote  these  words:  ^For  Justice  all  place 
a  temple,  and  all  season,  summer.'  He  believed 
that  happiness  is  the  only  good,  reason  the  only 
torch,  justice  the  only  worship,  humanity  the 
only  religion,  and  love  the  only  priest.  He 
added  to  the  sum  of  human  joy;  and  were  every 
one  to  whom  he  did  some  loving  service  to  bring 
a  blossom  to  his  grave,  he  would  sleep  to-night 
beneath  a  wilderness  of  flowers. 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  43 

"Life  is  a  narrow  vale  between  the  cold  and 
barren  peaks  of  two  eternities.  We  strive  in 
vain  to  look  beyond  the  heights.  We  cry  aloud, 
and  the  only  answer  is  the  echo  of  our  wailing 
^  /  cry.  From  the  voiceless  lips  of  the  unreplying 
dead  there  comes  no  word;  but  in  the  night  of 
death  Hope  sees  a  star  and  listening  Love  can 
"^  hear  the  rustle  of  a  wing. 

"He  who  sleeps  here,  when  dying,  mistaking 

the  approach  of  death  for  the  return  of  health, 

f  ..f^        whispered  with  his  latest  breath,  *I  am  better 

now.'     Let  us  believe,  in  spite  of  doubts  and 

dogmas,  of  fears  and  tears,  that  these  dear 

L     ,  words  are  true  of  all  the  countless  dead. 

|yi-     ^  .„,  j^^ V.      "The  record  of  a  generous  life  runs  like  a 

vine  around  the  memory  of  our  dead,  and  every 

sweet,  unselfish  act  is  now  a  perfumed  flower. 

"And  now,  to  you,  who  have  been  chosen 
from  among  the  many  men  he  loved,  to  do  the 
last  sad  office  for  the  dead,  we  give  his  sacred 
dust. 

"Speech  cannot  contain  our  love.  There 
was,  there  is,  no  gentler,  stronger,  manlier 
man." 


44  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

'^''^^Jl^*'  A  VISION  OF  WAR. 

What  patriot  can  read  without  emotion  the 
following  thrilling  epic  of  the  civil  war,  deliv- 
ered at  a  soldiers'  reunion  in  Indianapolis: 

**The  past  rises  before  me  like  a  dream. 
Again  we  are  in  the  great  struggle  for  national 
life.  We  hear  the  sounds  of  preparation — the 
music  of  boisterous  drums — the  silver  voices 
of  heroic  bugles.  We  see  thousands  of  assemb- 
lages, and  hear  the  appeals  of  orators.  We  see 
the  pale  cheeks  of  women,  and  the  flushed  faces 
of  men ;  and  in  those  assemblages  we  see  all  the 
dead  whose  dust  we  have  covered  with  flowers. 
We  lose  sight  of  them  no  more.  We  are  with 
them  when  they  enlist  in  the  great  army  of  free- 
dom. We  see  them  part  with  those  they  love. 
Some  are  walking  for  the  last  time  in  quiet, 
woody  places,  with  the  maidens  they  adore. 
We  hear  the  whisperings  and  the  sweet  vows  of 
eternal  love  as  they  lingeringly  part  forever. 
Others  are  bending  over  cradles,  kissing  babes 
that  are  asleep.  Some  are  receiving  the  bless- 
ings of  old  men.  Some  are  parting  with 
mothers  who  hold  and  press  them  to  their 
hearts  again  and  again,  and  say  nothing.  Kiss- 
es and  tears,  tears  and  kisses — divine  mingling 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  45 

of  agony  and  love !  And  some  are  talking  with 
wives,  and  endeavoring  with  brave  words, 
spoken  in  the  old  tones,  to  drive  from  their 
hearts  the  awful  fear.  We  see  them  part.  We 
see  the  wife  standing  in  the  door  with  the  babe 
in  her  arms — standing  in  the  sunlight,  sobbing. 
At  the  turn  of  the  road  a  hand  waves — she  an- 
swers by  holding  high  in  her  loving  arms  the 
child.    He  is  gone,  and  forever. 

"We  see  them  all  as  they  march  proudly 
away  under  the  flaunting  flags,  keeping  time  to 
the  grand,  wild  music  of  war — marching  down 
the  streets  of  the  gr-^at  cities — through  the 
towns  and  across  prairies — down  to  the  fields  of 
glory,  to  do  and  to  die  for  the  eternal  right. 

"We  go  with  them,  one  and  all.  We  are  by 
their  side  on  all  the  gory  fields — in  all  the  hos- 
pitals of  pain — on  all  the  weary  marches.  We 
stand  guard  with  them  in  the  wild  storm  and 
under  the  quiet  stars.  We  are  with  them  in 
ravines  running  with  blood — in  the  furrows  of 
old  fields.  We  are  with  them  between  contend- 
ing hosts,  unable  to  move,  wild  with  thirst,  the 
life  ebbing  slowly  away  among  the  withered 
leaves.  We  see  them  pierced  by  balls  and  torn 
with  shells,  in  the  trenches,  by  forts,  and  in  the 


46  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

whirlwind  of  the  charge,  where  men  become 
iron,  with  nerves  of  steel. 

"We  are  with  them  in  the  prisons  of  hatred 
and  famine;  but  human  speech  can  never  tell 
what  they  endured. 

"We  are  at  home  when  the  news  comes  that 
they  are  dead.  We  see  the  maiden  in  the  shadow 
of  her  first  sorrow.  We  see  the  silvered  head  of 
the  old  man  bowed  with  the  last  grief. 

"The  past  rises  before  us,  and  we  see  four 
millions  of  human  beings  governed  by  the  lash — 
we  see  them  bound  hand  and  foot — we  hear  the 
strokes  of  cruel  whips — we  see  the  hounds  track- 
ing women  through  tangled  swamps.  We  see 
babes  sold  from  the  breasts  of  mothers.  Cruelty 
unspeakable !     Outrage  infinite ! 

"Four  million  bodies  in  chains — four  million 
souls  in  fetters.  All  the  sacred  relations  of 
wife,  mother,  father  and  child  trampled  beneath 
the  brutal  feet  of  might.  And  all  this  was  done 
under  our  own  beautiful  banner  of  the  free. 

"The  past  rises  before  us.  We  hear  the  roar 
and  shriek  of  the  bursting  shell.  The  broken 
fetters  fall.  These  heroes  died.  We  look.  In- 
stead of  slaves  we  see  men  and  women  and  child- 
ren. The  wand  of  progress  touches  the  auction- 
block,  the  slave-pen,  the  whipping-post,  and  we 


6 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  47 

see  homes  and  firesides  and  school-houses  and 
books,  and  where  all  was  want  and  crime  and 
cruelty  and  fear,  we  see  the  faces  of  the  free. 

"These  heroes  are  dead.  They  died  for  lib- 
erty— they  died  for  us.  They  are  at  rest.  They 
,  sleep  in  the  land  they  made  free,  under  the  flag 
.  they  rendered  stainless,  under  the  solemn  pines^ 
^^'^  ,,  the  sad  hemlocks,  the  tearful  willows  and  the 
,  embracing  vines.  They  sleep  beneath  the  shad- 
ows of  the  clouds,  careless  alike  of  sunshine  or 
of  storm,  each  in  the  windowless  palace  of  Rest. 
Earth  may  run  red  with  other  wars — they  are 
at  peace.  In  the  midst  of  battle,  in  the  roar  of 
conflict,  they  found  the  serenity  of  death.  I 
have  one  sentiment  for  soldiers  living  and  dead : 
Cheers  for  the  living;  tears  for  the  dead. 


48  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

V. 

HIS  METHOD  IN  COMPOSITION. 

Mr.  Ingersoll's  method  in  the  composition  of 
his  written  and  spoken  words  was  singularly 
spontaneous  and  unmechanical.  He  was  not  a 
phrase-tinker  or  word-carpenter.  His  pictures 
flashed  from  his  brain  as  finished  products. 
They  were  fixed  on  the  canvas  without  correct- 
ing touches  of  form  or  color,  completed  as  cre- 
ated. What  his  artist-soul  saw  and  felt  he 
instantly  communicated  as  visible  and  audible 
images  to  others^  eyes  and  ears.  No  matter 
what  the  theme,  his  tongue  responded  to  his 

^  thought  in  instant  and  perfect  epigram,  illus- 

(_  tration,  simile,  or  metaphor. 

Excepting  social  letters,  and  memoranda 
found  on  scattered  scraps  of  paper,  he  wrote 
little  with  his  own  hand.  Nearly  everything  he 
gave  for  publication  was  dictated.  His  legal 
briefs  and  papers,  his  magazine  and  review 
articles,  editorials,  press  interviews,  mono- 
graphs, speeches,  lectures, — everything  he  wish- 
ed to  say — were  delivered  in  faultless  form 
through  the  portals  of  his  facile  lips.  Where- 
ever  he  happened  to  be, — in  his  office,  at  his 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  49 

home,  on  the  boat,  in  the  train,  in  the  cab  rat- 
tling through  noisy  streets,  sitting,  standing,  re- 
clining— he  spoke  the  splendid  words  that  the 
stenographer's  art  caught  and  reproduced  for 
him.  His  famous  Replies  to  Judge  Black  in  The 
North  American  Review  were  dictated  at  the 
billiard  table  in  his  home,  with  cue  in  hand.  A 
sentence  and  a  paragraph,  then  a  run  with  the 
balls, — another  paragraph,  another  run, — and 
so  on  to  the  end.  His  Replies  to  Mr.  Gladstone, 
Dr.  Field,  Cardinal  Manning,  and  other  cham- 
pions '  in  the  religious  arena,  were  composed 
under  like  distractions,  as  most  would  deem 
them.  To  Mr.  Ingersoll,  however,  who  had  as 
few  men  ever  had  it,  the  faculty  of  thinking 
on  his  feet,  these  distractions  seemed  only  to 
stimulate  and  concentrate  his  thought. 

AS  A  CONVERSATIONALIST. 

In  conversation,  whether  in  private  or  social 
circles,  he  was  beyond  expression  delightful, 
versatile,  great.  The  favored  guests  at  his  fire- 
side often  found  themselves  dumb  in  his  pres- 
ence— struck  into  listening  silence — so  that  only 
the  one  magnetic  voice  was  heard.  He  was  at  his 
best  in  his  own  home  circle.  Here  he  showed 
his  shining  self  as  nowhere  else.      Here  his 


50  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

abandon  was  complete.  Here  he  threw  off  all 
trammels  of  convention,  all  reserve,  all  con- 
sciousness of  power,  and  spoke  and  acted  as  he 
felt, — with  the  exuberance  of  youth,  forget- 
ful of  his  mature  years  and  ripe  experience. 
Around  his  hospitable  board  his  chosen  friends 
feasted  on  food  for  mind  and  body,  heart  and 
soul.  Those  table-talks  day  after  day,  joined  in 
by  his  family  and  guests  whom  he  stimulated 
by  question  and  rally  and  the  force  of  his  genial, 
gentle  leadership, — who  could  forget  them? 

And  those  informal  Sunday  evening  recep- 
tions held  week  after  week  in  his  Washington 
home !  Here  distinguished  men  and  women, — 
scientists,  scholars,  philosophers,  thinkers,  judg- 
es, lawyers,  merchants,  bankers,  capitalists, 
clerks,  artists  and  artisans,  religious  and  non- 
religious  professors,  and  even  theologians — 
saints  and  sinners — gathered  in  his  parlors 
and  drawing-room  and  joined  in  the  discussions 
which  he  led  on  all  topics  of  human  interest.  It 
is  fair  to  say  that  no  social  or  intellectual  func- 
tions of  the  day  in  Washington  were  better  at- 
tended, more  attractive  and  distinguished,  or  so 
truly  cosmopolitan,  as  those  enjoyed  in  the  home 
of  Colonel  Robert  G.  Ingersoll.  On  one  occa- 
sion no  less  than  five  Presidential  aspirants 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  51 

mingled  in  the  throng.  It  was  a  frequent  wish 
of  his  auditors  on  these  occasions  that  he  had 
had  an  audience  of  thousands  to  hear  him.  He 
spoke  as  no  man  living  spoke. 

GREAT  IN  STORY-TELUNG. 

There  never  was  a  better  teller  of  a  story 
than  Mr.  Ingersoll.  Like  Lincoln,  he  always  had 
his  quiver  full,  and  never  one  missed  its  mark. 
He  was  in  constant  demand  as  an  after-dinner 
speaker,  and  the  chief  attraction  at  many  a 
social  feast  and  club  banquet.    He  knew  just 
'^ji^  where  and  when  to  stop  in  the  narration  of  any 
vl<?''""'  fact  or  fancy.    His  faultless  allegories,  similes, 
"^      metaphors  and  epigrams  were  faultlessly  used. 
^    As  we  have  seen,  he  was  also  a  king  in  repartee. 
^    In  swift  reply  he  always  returned  much  better 
than  was  sent.    Those  rash  opponents  who  ven- 
tured to  attack  him  when  they  thought  him  off 
his  guard  repented  of  their  temerity,  for  they 
found  him  fully  armed  to  meet  them.    The  re- 
tort courteous  or  keen,  gentle  or  severe,  grave  or 
gay — always  fitting — ^was  ready  at  command 
for  every  time  and  place,  every  season  and  oc- 
casion.   Two  incidents  only  out  of  many  need 
be  here  recalled. 

On  a  train  going  through  California  a  pom- 


-yvv 


62  ROBERT  G.  INGEPwSOLL 

pous  clergyman  proclaimed  aloud  his  faith  to  all 
the  travellers  in  the  car.  He  passed  along  the 
aisle,  and  when  he  reached  the  seat  in  which  the 
Colonel  sat,  cried  out  with  strident  voice,  "The 
fool  hath  said  in  his  heart,*  there  is  no  God; 
thank  God,  I'm  not  a  fool!"  Before  he  could 
strut  out,  the  Colonel  sent  the  swift  reply,  'That 
depends  on  what  the  people  think  who  know 
you!"  At  another  time  a  pious  maiden,  think- 
ing to  entrap  him,  brought  a  nosegay  and  hand- 
ing it  to  him  suddenly  said:  "Colonel,  who  made 
these  beautiful  flowers?"  "The  same,  my  dear 
young  lady,  that  made  the  poison  of  the  ivy  and 
the  asp!" 

HIS  WEALTH  OF  INFORMATION. 

When,  or  where,  or  how  this  full  man  ac- 
quired the  treasures  of  knowledge  at  his  com- 
mand, has  been  the  puzzle  of  his  friends.  As  I 
knew  him  and  observed  him  he  did  not  seem  to 
be  a  great  reader,  or  student  of  books,  and  yet 
he  was  acquainted  with  most  worth-while  books. 
He  was  not  a  classical  scholar,  so-called,  yet  he 
knew  the  classics.  He  was  not  a  historian,  yet 
he  knew  history.  He  was  not  a  scientist  or 
philosopher,  according  to  the  schools,  and  held  no 
college  diploma,  yet  he  knew  much  of  nearly  all 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  53 

the  sciences  and  philosophies.  Colleges  and  uni- 
versities under  the  patronage  and  control  of  re- 
ligious denominations,  he  used  to  say  were 
generally  institutions  where  "pebbles  were  pol- 
ished and  diamonds  dimmed."  He  often  quoted 
Bruno,  who  called  Oxford  "the  widow  of 
learning." 

Nor  was  he  a  theologian,  yet  he  knew  theo- 
logies, and  could  and  did  successfully  contend 
with  the  greatest  in  that  field.  He  claimed  that 
they  never  answered  his  arguments.  He  had 
such  a  power  of  ready  assimilation,  that  every- 
thing he  saw  or  read  or  heard  was  instantly 
appropriated  and  became  his  own.  He  seemed 
to  forget  nothing  that  he  ever  knew.  He  was 
always  acquiring  from  the  countless  sources  of 
knowledge.  He  read  with  the  greatest  eagerness 
and  rapidity.  I  have  known  him  to  glance  over 
the  pages  of  even  metaphysical  treatises,  and 
without  apparent  hesitation  possess  himself  of 
their  contents. 

HIS  VERSATILITY  OF  TALENT. 

Keeping  abreast  of  the  times  as  he  did,  he 
knew  the  latest  theories,  discoveries,  and  inven- 
tions,— all  that  was  going  on  in  the  world  of 
science  and  art,  of  men  and  measures.     Nothing 


64  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

seemed  to  escape  his  notice,  or  to  be  beyond  his 
grasp.  His  range  of  information  was  truly 
encyclopedic.  It  was  said  of  him,  as  of  another 
eminent  publicist — I  think  it  was  of  Col.  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt: — **He  had  the  greatest  and 
most  accurate  knowledge  on  the  largest  number 
of  subjects,  of  any  man  I  ever  knew."  ^  He  had  a 
mathematical  knowledge  that  made  him  an  adept 
in  figures  and  much  more  than  an  amateur  in 
astronomy.  He  knew  the  names  of  all  the  con- 
stellations with  their  principal  stars,  and  loved 
by  night  to  sweep  the  heavens  with  his  powerful 
telescope,  and  observe  the  phases  of  the  moon 
and  movements  of  the  planets  and  their  satel- 
lites. This  love  of  astronomy  and  aptness  with 
figures,  he  said,  "ran  in  the  family,"  was  an  in- 
herited gift  from  his  mother.  He  was  also  a 
well-known  student  of  sociology  and  a  past-mas- 
ter in  domestic  and  political  economy,  a  wise 
and  far-seeing  publicist  and  an  enlightened 
statesman — an  ardent  Republican,  but  not  an 
office-seeker,  or  politician,  out  for  the  spoils. 

If  his  role  as  a  lawyer  required  a  knowledge 
of  diseases  and  their  symptoms  and  treatment, 
by  the  study  of  medical  treatises  bearing  on  his 
case  he  became,  for  the  nonce,  a  pathologist;  of 
surgery  a  surgeon ;  of  finance  a  financier, — and 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  65 

SO  with  many  of  the  applied  and  useful  arts. 
The  many  railway,  telegraph  and  patent  suits 
he  tried  made  of  him  a  railroad  organizer, 
director,  and  president,  an  electrician  and  indus- 
trial expert.  He  once  tried  a  case  in  which  the 
plaintiff  had  been  injured  in  a  railroad  accident, 
and  so  astonished  the  Court  and  experts  that  a 
surgeon  in  attendance,  surprised  at  his  tech- 
nical knowledge  of  anatomy,  asked  him  when 
and  where  he  had  experimented,  and  from  what 
institution  he  had  graduated.  His  wonderful 
capacity  for  acquiring  knowledge  needed  on  any  ^ 
subject  accounts  for  this  versatility. 

A  DEVOURER  OF  BOOKS. 

While,  as  I  have  said,  he  did  not  in  his  later 
years  seem  to  be  a  great  reader  of  books,  yet  in 
early  life  he  had  laid  the  foundations  well.  As 
a  boy  and  in  his  young  manhood  he  was  an  in- 
quirer and  observer.  Even  as  a  child  he  was  a 
lover  of  books,  and  later  on  it  became  with  him  a 
fascination  and  passion.  He  read  everything 
of  value  he  could  lay  his  hands  on, — knew  every 
book  in  his  father's  library.  He  read  thought- 
fully, voraciously,  constantly.  Night  after 
night,  and  all  the  night  through,  he  has  told  me, 
he  has  read  until  mentally  and  physically  ex- 


56  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

hausted.  Nor  did  he  wish  merely  to  go  through 
a  book.  He  wanted  to  understand  it.  He  read 
with  a  purpose.  He  was  eager  to  search,  to  find, 
to  know.  His  thirst  for  knowledge  was  insati- 
ate. He  has  said:  "Banish  me  from  Eden  when 
you  will,  but  first  let  me  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the 
tree  of  knowledge.",.  He  was  hungry  for  facts, 
for  truths,  for  reasons.  He  absorbed  and  as- 
similated, combined,  separated  and  classified, 
criticised  and  compared  until  he  could  reach  a 
decision.  He  never  left  a  subject  until  he 
thought  he  understood  it. 

A  WONDERFUL  MEMORY. 

His  memory,  as  we  have  noted  it  in  his 
career  as  a  lawyer,  was  truly  a  marvelous  gift. 
Whatever  once  left  its  impress  on  the  tablets 
of  his  sensitive  brain  seemed  fixed  there  for  all 
the  future,  to  be  retained  until  recalled.  Shake- 
speare and  Burns  were  so  familiar  to  him  that  he 
had  them  by  heart,  as  we  say,  and  he  could  and 
did  quote  whole  scenes  and  acts  almost  without 
an  error,  as  one  would  read  it  from  the  printed 
page.  I  have  heard  him  say  if  most  of  the  plays 
of  the  one  and  poems  of  the  other  should  be  lost 
of  record,  he  could  substantially  restore  them. 
And  it  was  the  same  with  countless  selections  he 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  57 

had  acquired  from  the  world's  greatest  thinkers 
and  writers. 

He  almost  deified  Shakespeare,  and  among 
other  tributes  to  that  wonderful  genius,  said: 
"Shakespeare  was  an  intellectual  ocean,  whose 
waves  touched  all  the  shores  of  thought ;  within 
which  were  all  the  tides  and  waves  of  destiny 
and  will;  over  which  swept  all  the  storms  of 
fate,  ambition  and  revenge ;  upon  which  fell  the 
gloom  and  darkness  of  despair  and  death  and  all 
the  sunlight  of  content  and  love,  and  within 
which  was  the  inverted  sky  lit  with  the  eternal 
stars — an  intellectual  ocean — toward  which  all 
rivers  ran,  and  from  which  now  the  isles  and 
continents  of  thought  receive  their  dew  and 
rain." 

It  was  a  favorite  saying  of  his,  "Shakespeare 
is  my  Bible  and  Burns  my  Hymn-book." 

Upon  his  library  table  he  kept  two  magnifi- 
cent folio  volumes — one  of  Shakespeare,  the 
other  of  Burns; — ^but  unlike  the  traditional 
"parlor  ornament" — the  fetich  in  so  many 
Christian  homes, — they  were  there  not  for  dis- 
play, but  for  use,  and  were  constantly  resorted 
to  for  reading  and  reference. 


68  KOBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

A  FERTILE  IMAGINATION. 

Added  to  his  other  gifts  and  qualifications, 
natural  and  acquired,  and  crowning  them  all, 
was  his  splendid  imagination.  This  faculty  in 
him  was  richly  developed.  He  seemed  by  its 
power  to  mount  to  the  loftiest  heights  and  to  see 
into  the  soul  and  substance  of  things — to  pene- 
trate far  beyond  and  below  all  surfaces.  He  has 
said  that  he  shrank  from  passing  a  cemetery, — 
not  through  fear,  for  there  never  was  a  more 
fearless  soul, — but  because  beneath  the  mounds 
and  monuments  he  could  see  the  faces  of  the  dead 
and  clothe  the  mouldering  forms  with  throbbing 
life.  This  power  filled  in  for  him  all  vacant 
spaces,  supplied  all  missing  links.  Given  a 
bone,  a  scale,  a  root,  a  leaf,  and  the  man  of  sci- 
ence will  construct  for  you  the  bird,  the  fish, 
the  flower  and  tree  that  were.  So  the  con- 
structive Colonel  needed  but  the  hints  and  frag- 
ments of  a  fact  to  enable  him  to  group  together 
all  related  facts  and  complete  the  structure  as 
it  was  and  should  be.  But  he  went  a  great 
way  farther.  With  "imagination's  wondrous 
wand,"  as  he  styled  it,  and  with  his  poetic  soul, 
he  made  his  tree  a  mighty  forest,  his  flower  a 
garden  of  Eden  without  its  serpent,  his  fish  a 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  59 

sporting  multitude  peopling  happy  seas,  and  his 
woods  and  groves  a  fairy  land  vocal  with  the 
notes  of  warbling  birds  and  teeming  with  all 
forms  of  joyous  life.  He  was  a  poet — a  real 
creator — a  prophet  of  the  truth  and  love  and 
joy  to  be.  , 

HIS  EARLY  RELIGIOUS  TRAINING. 

''  They  greatly  err  who  think  and  say  that  Mr. 
Ingersoll  as  a  child  was  not,  could  not  have  been, 
properly  trained  in  religious  truths  and  duties. 
He  was  the  son  of  loving  and  praying  parents. 
His  father  was  a  Presbyterian  and  Congrega- 
tional minister,  beloved  and  honored  by  all  who 
knew  him.  His  sweet  and  noble  mother  died 
when  Robert  was  a  babe  of  only  two  years. 
Her  loving  task  fell  to  the  father.  By  precept 
and  example  he  strove  with  all  his  might,  fer- 
vently invoking  divine  assistance,  tenderly  and 
truly  to  train  his  child  in  the  way  he  should  go, 
relying  on  the  promise  that  when  old  he  would 
not  depart  from  it.  Robert  was  brought  up  on 
the  Bible  and  the  Westminster  Shorter  Cate- 
echism,  and  taught  a  strict  observance  of  the 
Sabbath  day.  He  was  admonished  to  search  the 
Scriptures.  He  did  search  them,  but  found 
them  wanting,  and  frankly  said  so.    They  did 


60  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

not  solve  his  childish  doubts,  answer  his  many 
questions,  or  satisfy  the  awakening  yearnings 
of  his  large  and  affectionate  heart.  "Something 
wrong,  somewhere,'*  was  his  frequent  comment, 
even  as  a  boy,  as  he  read  the  Bible.  His  father 
was  troubled  in  spirit.  He  could  not  compre- 
hend such  skepticism  in  one  so  young, — the 
child  of  his  own  heart  and  hopes,  of  his  own  faith 
and  prayers.  How  could  he,  in  his  wildest 
dreams,  ever  have  foreseen  that  this  bright  and 
beautiful  boy  would  one  day  ripen  into  the  most 
famous  Agnostic  of  the  century?  Yet,  with  all 
his  fears  and  misgivings,  this  good  father  was 
wise  and  just  and  broad  enough  to  say:  "My 
boy,  be  true  to  yourself;  tell  your  honest 
thought;  never  be  a  hypocrite !"    He  never  was. 

HIS  father's  tutor. 

As  he  advanced  in  years  and  "grew  in  wis- 
dom and  stature"  he  became  his  father's  tutor 
in  religious  research.  He  was  to  him  a  veri- 
table commentary,  concordance  and  index  of 
Bible  texts  and  passages.  He  discussed  intelli- 
gently with  him  the  creeds,  histories  and  the- 
ologies, the  doctrines  and  dogmas  of  Jewish, 
Heathen  and  Christian  religions.  His  father 
was  proud  of  him  although  he  could  not  answer 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  61 

him,  and  wept  over  his  heterodoxy,  while  he 
«ould  not  help  admiring  his  wonderful  defense 
of  it.  While  yet  a  boy  Robert  knew  the  Bible 
from  cover  to  cover,  having  read  it  through 
more  than  once,  and  by  his  gift  of  memory  re- 
tained it.  He  had  also  gone  through  the  Com- 
mentaries of  Scott,  Henry  and  Clarke.  He 
knew  every  book  in  his  father's  library  and 
could  quote  at  will  from  most  of  them. 
"Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Progress"  interested  and 
its  dramatic  style  pleased  him,  while  "Fox's 
Book  of  Martyrs"  fascinated  but  terrified  him ; 
it  burned  into  his  soul  and  filled  his  days  with 
fear  and  nights  with  horrid  dreams.  "Milton's 
Paradise  Lost"  with  its  "heavenly  militia,"  as 
he  termed  it,  fed  but  failed  to  entrap  his 
imagination,  and  he  said  that  Mr.  Jenkyn  needed 
to  atone  for  his  book  "On  The  Atonement." 
"Alleine's  Alarm"  did  not  frighten  him; 
"Baxter's  Call"  met  no  response  from  his  intel- 
lect or  heart,  and  his  "Saints'  Rest"  was  not  the 
kind  of  rest  he  thought  he  could  enjoy,  "where 
congregations  ne'er  break  up  and  Sabbaths 
have  no  end,"  while  Jonathan  Edwards'  fright- 
ful sermon,  "Sinners  in  the  Hands  of  an  Angry 
God,"  excited  only  his  indignation,  pity  and 
disgust.  — 


62  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

The  simple  truth  is  that  Mr.  Ingersoll  was 
an  unbeliever  from  his  childhood.  He  has  said 
to  me,  as  to  others,  that  he  never  remembered 
the  time  when  his  mind  did  not  reject  and  his 
heart  resent  what  he  believed  to  be  the  cruelties 
and  falsehoods  of  many  of  the  Bible  doctrines 
and  narratives,  and  when  he  did  not  hate  with 
all  his  soul  the  injustice  and  savagery  of  the 
man-made  God  of  the  Scriptures. 

A  WORTHY  FATHER  OF  A  NOBLE  SON. 

He  often  joined  in  the  conversations  and  con- 
troversies of  the  clergymen  who  made  his  fa- 
therms  home  a  favorite  place  of  assembly.  As 
a  youth  he  was  remarkable  for  his  debating 
powers  and  his  ability  to  define  and  defend  his 
views  on  religion  and  other  subjects  under  dis- 
cussion. His  father  not  only  respected  his  con- 
victions, but  sought  his  opinions  on  disputed 
points  of  doctrine  and  belief,  and  while  he  might 
not  be  able  to  accept  his  conclusions,  always 
accorded  his  son  the  right  of  private  judgment 
and  freedom  of  expression.  He  was  the  worthy 
father  of  a  noble  son.  Long  before  his  death, 
this  loving  and  tender  man  who,  as  Mr.  Inger- 
soll has  told  me,  often  walked  the  floor  at  nights 
weeping  and  agonizing  over  the  condition  of 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  63 

lost  worlds  of  souls;  at  last,  learning  "out 
of  the  mouth  of  his  own  babe  and  suckling," 
gave  up  his  belief  in  eternal  torment  and  died 
abhorring  it. 

IN  MUSIC  AND  THE  DRAMA. 

As  may  well  be  inferred  from  what  has  been 
said,  Mr.  Ingersoll  was  a  many-sided  man. 
Though  not  a  musician  he  was  a  most  discrim- 
inating judge  and  passionate  lover  of  music. 
His  ear  and  heart  were  ^'finely  tuned  to  all  the 
harmonies."  He  attended  all  the  great  operas, 
heard  all  the  famous  songsters,  and  knew  fami- 
liarly many  of  the  masters  of  the  baton.  His 
own  home  was  a  temple  of  music  and  its  music- 
room  the  shrine  of  his  dwelling.  Here  was  his 
family  altar.  His  wife  and  daughters  were 
the  divinities.  His  two  children  had  been  thor- 
oughly educated  in  music  and  song,  so  that 
under  the  tenderly  sweet  voice  of  the  one  and 
the  exquisitely  deft  touch  of  the  other,  the 
happy  father  sat  as  one  entranced,  his  sorrows 
soothed,  his  cares  dismissed,  his  strength  renew- 
ed and  his  soul  satisfied.  Surely  never  was 
sweeter  music  heard  in  any  home  than  in  the 
home  of  Robert  G.  Ingersoll. 


64  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

Having  such  "music  in  his  soul"  he  natur- 
ally gathered  about  him  congenial  spirits.  He 
was  widely  recognized  as  the  friend  and  patron 
of  singers  and  musicians,  of  artists  and  actors, 
poets  and  painters,  and  workers  in  every  field 
of  fine  expression.  Many  of  the  brightest  lights 
in  these  professions  were  his  intimates,  who 
sought  his  counsel  and  accepted  his  criticisms 
and  suggestions  on  their  work.  He  loved  the 
drama,  was  the  intimate  of  Booth  and  Barrett 
and  their  legal  counsellor,  the  admired  and  ad- 
miring friend  of  Joseph  Jefferson,  and  of  nearly 
all  the  popular  actors  of  the  day.  He  was  a 
contributor  to  the  leading  dramatic,  musical  and 
art  journals,  a  frequent  visitor  at  artists' 
studios,  in  constant  demand  and  the  chief 
attraction  as  a  speaker  in  entertainments  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Actors*  Fund,  and  by  voice 
and  pen  showed  his  sympathy  with  every  move- 
ment for  the  elevation  and  improvement  of  the 
actors'  profession. 

In  his  musical  taste  he  was  passionately  fond 
of  Wagner,  and  revelled  in  his  "music  of  two 
worlds,"  as  he  styled  it.  He  called  him  "the 
Shakespeare  of  music."  Beethoven's  "Sweet 
and  dim  symphonies"  appealed  deliciously  to  his 
sympathetic  ear,  and  indeed  the  great  creations 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  65 

of  most  of  the  masters  of  song  stirred  him  to  the 
depths.  They  thrilled,  ravished,  transported 
him.  The  perfect  affected  him  to  tears.  He 
loved  in  certain  moods  the  riot  of  melody,  the 
wild  and  chaotic  chorus,  the  "wolf-tone"  effects 
of  full  orchestration,  as  well  as  in  placid  moods 
he  enjoyed  the  quieter  melody  of  the  solo  and 
duet.  Anton  Seidl  as  an  artist  in  harmony  cap- 
tivated him  completely  and  won  his  personal 
regard.  His  memorial  tribute  to  that  great 
wielder  of  the  baton  is  one  of  the  finest  in 
musical  literature. 

The  violin  was  his  special  favorite  among 
instruments.  All  night  long  in  his  home  he  has 
sat  entranced  under  the  spell  of  Remenyi's  bow. 
He  loved  the  sudden  contrasts,  the  ascending 
notes  of  trium.ph  to  the  heights  of  the  cres- 
cendo, and  then  the  fall  to  the  diminuendo 
— notes  that  softly  floated  down  like  snow- 
flakes  and  like  them  melted  in  the  noiseless  air. 
The  organ,  unless  a  master  touched  the  keys, 
seldom  satisfied  him, — it  too  often  suggested 
ecclesiastic  service  and  ceremony.  For  a  like 
reason  the  tolling  bell  and  metallic  chime  failed 
to  please  him.  Beauty,  sweetness,  joy,  and  the 
married  harmony  of  form  and  motion,  sound 
and  color,  appealed  to  his  aesthetic  and  artistic 


66  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

self  in  countless  ways,  and  found  wide  open  por- 
tals at  every  avenue  of  his  art-attuned  senses. 
He  was  not  only  a  lover  of  art,  but  himself  an 
artist,  weaving,  painting,  sculpturing  with 
words,  and  acting  his  splendid  part  in  the 
drama  of  life, — a  drama  that  ended,  he  said,  in 
a  tragedy  for  all. 


CONCERNING  HIS  LECTURING. 

Mr.  Ingersoll,  as  we  have  seen,  was  first  of 
all,  a  lawyer.  This  profession  was  his  early 
choice,  and  its  pursuit  through  life  his  chief 
reliance.  In  it  he  rose  to  eminence  and  won 
enviable  recognition.  But  he  was  more  than 
a  lawyer.  He  was  so  many-sided,  so  "dearly 
parted,  so  much  in  having,  or  without  or  in," 
that  one  pursuit  alone  could  not  fill  his  measure 
or  provide  a  scope  wide  and  broad  and  full 
enough  for  all  his  virile  powers.  His  brain  was 
large,  but  his  heart  was  larger,  so  that  while 
he  had  views  and  opinions  on  most  subjects,  he 
had  something  higher,  deeper,  stronger, — he 
had  deep-seated  convictions  on  the  side  of  Truth, 
Justice,  Freedom,  Honor,  Courage,  Candor  of 
the  soul,  and  all  the  human  virtues. 

He  was  an  ardent  patriot.  He  loved  his 
country  and  its  free  institutions  with  a  passion- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  67 

ate  fervor.  He  hated  slavery  and  oppression 
in  every  form ;  so  we  early  find  him  in  the  Army 
of  Freedom  and  the  Union  where  he  earned  his 
title  of  Colonel  by  raising  a  regiment  of 
Illinois  cavalry.  But  the  horrors  of  war  were 
too  appalling  to  his  gentle  and  tender  spirit. 
He  could  not  bear  the  sight  of  suffering  even 
of  dumb  animals,  and  he  soon  resigned  the 
sword  of  war  to  fight  with  tongue  and  pen  the 
battles  of  the  weak,  the  ignorant  and  enslaved. 
And  so  eloquent  and  convincing  was  this  tongue, 
that  when  a  prisoner  in  General  Forrest^s  camp, 
his  influence  was  so  marked  upon  the  Confede- 
rate troops  that  the  General  soon  paroled  him, 
saying  that  if  he  did  not,  Ingersoll  would  con- 
vert all  his  men  into  Yankees !  He  was  every- 
where and  always  a  mighty  champion  of  Lib- 
erty, Justice  and  Truth,  of  the  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  mankind.  .-< 

"WOE  IS  ME  IF  I  PREACH  NOT  THE  GOSPEL !" 

Endowed  as  he  was,  and  knew  himself  to  be, 
he  deemed  it  a  crime  against  his  nature  to  be 
silent  when  he  felt  he  ought  to  speak.  He  used 
to  say,  with  an  arch  smile  at  his  use  of  a  Scrip- 
ture quotation:  "Woe  is  me  if  I  preach  not  the 
Gospel!"  ("The  average  man,"  he  said,   "is 


68  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

afraid  to  utter  his  real  thought.'*  "He  is  the 
prey  of  Tyranny  and  Superstition."  "The 
Throne  and  Altar  were  twins — two  vultures 
from  the  same  eggJ'  {"The  race  is  under  the 
dominion  of  Fear, — fear  of  men,  of  ghosts,  of 
hells.  I  do  not  fear.  I  will  speak  what  I  think." 
"Somebody  ought  to  tell  the  truth  about  the 
Bible.  The  preachers  dare  not,  because  they 
would  be  driven  from  their  pulpits.  Professors 
in  colleges  dare  not,  because  they  would  lose 
their  salaries.  Politicians  dare  not.  They 
would  be  defeated.  Editors  dare  not.  They 
would  lose  subscribers.  Merchants  dare  not, 
because  they  might  lose  customers.  Men  of 
fashion  dare  not,  fearing  that  they  would  lose 
caste.  Even  clerks  dare  not,  because  they 
might  be  discharged.  And  so,  I  thought  I 
would  do  it  myself."/ 

Thus  as  a  young  lawyer,  still  studying  and 
practising  his  profession,  he  gave  his  thought 
to  wide  and  yet  wider  themes,  to  large  and  yet 
larger  audiences,  and  entered  upon  his  trium- 
phant lecturing  career. 

So  many  thousands  have  seen  and  heard 
him,  in  so  many  places  and  on  so  many  subjects, 
that  it  seems  hardly  worth  while  here  to  speak 
of  his  manner  and  method  on  the  platform— 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  69 

only  to  say  that  as  an  orator  he  was  the  embodi- 
ment of  natural  ease  and  grace,  poise  and 
power.  He  used  few  gestures, — was  not  a  desk- 
pounder,  an  air-sawyer,  or  a  stage-strutter. 
He  was  not  declamatory, — did  not  rant,  or  rage, 
or  "tear  a  passion  to  tatters,  to  very  rags,"  as 
the  manner  of  some  is,  but  following  Hamlet's 
advice  to  the  players,  he  "used  all  gently,  acquir- 
ing and  begetting  a  temperance  that  should  give 
all  smoothness."  His  aim  was  to  "hold  the  mir- 
ror up  to  nature,"  and  he  did  it  wonderfully.  In 
his  flights  of  eloquence  he  carried  his  audiences 
with  him,  lifting  them  to  the  highest  pinnacles 
of  enthusiasm,  or  stirring  them  to  the  deepest 
recesses  of  their  being.  With  his  pathos  he 
melted  them  to  tears  and  ere  the  drops  were  dry, 
by  his  sparkling  wit  and  humor,  transformed 
the  pearls  of  pity  into  smiles  of  joy,  or  peals  of 
laughter.  He  was  indeed  a  master-musician 
who  played  upon  every  human  heart-string. 

It  was  a  fine  study  to  note  him  in  the  ante- 
room both  before  and  after  the  giving  of  a  lec- 
ture. Before,  he  was  eager,  expectant,  almost 
exultant  at  the  prospect  of  again  delivering  his 
message.  His  mood  was  cheerful  and  happy, 
his  countenance  radiant  with  the  anticipated 
pleasure.    He  seemed  at  peace  with  himself  and 


70  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

with  all  the  world.  After,  when  many  of  his 
friends  gathered  to  offer  their  congratulations 
and  express  tlieir  admiration,  he  accepted  their 
praise  with  unfeigned  satisfaction  and  the  can- 
dor of  a  happy  child  pleased  with  the  praise  of 
a  parent  over  some  worthy  performance. 

It  was  no  task  for  him  to  speak.  He  loved 
to  speak.  It  was  to  him  an  exultation.  He 
knew  he  had  something  to  say  and  that  he  knew 
how  to  say  it.  He  usually  carried  his  notes  to  the 
platform.  These  notes  were  often  in  mere  out- 
line prepared  from  dictation  to  his  secretary, 
but  sometimes  quite  fully  printed  in  large  type. 
He  was  not  a  slave  to  his  manuscript — seldom 
followed  it  closely  any  distance.  No  one  lecture 
was  precisely  the  same  in  its  repeated  deliveries. 
After  one  or  two  presentations  of  a  new  lecture 
he  had  it  by  head  and  tongue  and  heart  and 
\>l['     needed  no  prompting  thereafter. 

ALL  MASTERPIECES. 

The  lectures  that  perhaps  most  fully  satis- 
fied him  were :  "The  Liberty  of  Man,  Woman 
and  Child,"  'The  Gods,"  "The  Ghosts,"  "Ortho- 
doxy," "Some  Mistakes  of  Moses,"  "AVhich 
Way?"  "Myth  and  Miracle,"  "What  Must  We 
do  to  be  Saved?"  "The  Great  Infidels,"  "Some 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  71 

Reasons  Why,"  "About  the  Holy  Bible"  and 
"Shakespeare," — although  he  rarely  expressed 
a  preference,  simply  accepted  the  verdict  of  his 
friends.  The  truth  is,  that  every  one  of  his 
more  than  sixty  famous  lectures  and  his  hun- 
dreds of  great  speeches,  controversies,  inter- 
views, tributes,  orations,  prose-poems  and  legal 
addresses  was  a  masterpiece.  The  "Liberty" 
lecture,  however,  was  received  with  such  popular 
acclaim,  and  was  so  frequently  demanded,  that 
he  was  disposed  to  regard  it  as  probably  the 
most  effective  of  his  efforts. 

On  one  occasion  after  its  delivery  in  Wash- 
ington, a  United  States  Senator  sought  him  and 
said:  "Colonel,  you  have  converted  me. 
For  years  I  have  been  estranged  from 
my  only  daughter  because  she  did  not  marry 
to  please  me,  but  now  I  shall  go  to  her  to-night, 
and  beg  her  forgiveness  for  allowing  a  selfish 
pride  to  keep  her  from  my  arms  and  heart!" 
Father  and  daughter  were  reconciled,  and  the 
peace  and  joy  then  born  in  a  happy  home  re- 
mained a  seal  to  the  efficacy  of  the  ColoneFs 
teachings.  Some  said  to  him :  "That  is  a  great 
sermon  of  yours.  Colonel,"  referring  to  the 
"Liberty"  lecture.    Others  said,  "What  a  great 


72  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

preacher  he  would  have  made !"  He  never  con- 
sidered the  remark  a  compliment. 

ATTACKING  CHERISHED  BELIEFS. 

'-'  His  Christian  admirers  sometimes  said: 
"Colonel,  why  don't  you  moderate  your  expres- 
sions, qualify  your  speech,  and  be  more  careful 
not  to  offend  the  susceptibilities  of  many  of  your 
hearers, — your  views  would  be  so  much  better 
received  even  if  they  were  not  adopted?"  'I'll 
tell  you  why.  I  do  not  attack  persons,  but  their 
superstitions.  I  deal  with  opinions,  not  with 
those  who  hold  them.  I  do  not  war  against 
men.  I  do  not  war  against  persons.  I  war 
against  certain  doctrines  that  I  believe  to  be 
wrong.  But  I  give  to  every  human  being  every 
right  that  I  claim  for  myself. 

**I  have  not  the  slightest  malice,  no  hate.  A 
victor  never  feels  malice.  I  tell  my  honest 
thought,  my  sincere  belief,  my  earnest  con- 
victions." 

To  a  preacher  who  urged  him  to  deal  more 
gently  with  the  beliefs  cherished  by  many  in  his 
audiences,  he  replied:  "You  do  not  exactly 
appreciate  my  feeling.  I  do  not  hate  Presbyter- 
ians, I  hate  Presbyterianism.  I  hate  with  all  my 
heart  the  creed  of  that  church,   and  I  most 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  73 

heartily  despise  the  God  described  in  the  Con- 
fession of  Faith.  Some  of  the  best  friends 
I  have  in  the  world  are  afflicted  with  the  mental 
malady  known  as  Presbyterianism.  They  are 
the  victims  of  the  consolation  growing  out  of  the 
belief  that  a  vast  majority  of  their  fellow-men 
are  doomed  to  suffer  eternal  torment,  to  the  end 
that  their  Creator  may  be  eternally  glorified.  I 
have  said  many  times,  and  I  say  again,  that  I 
^  do  not  despise  a  man  because  he  has  the  rheu- 
^  matism;  I  despise  the  rheumatism  because  it 
"^'  has  a  man."  "They  tell  me  to  use  gentler  ex- 
pressions, and  more  cunning  words.  Do  they 
really  wish  me  to  make  more  converts?  If 
their  advice  is  honest,  they  are  traitors  to  their 
trust.  If  their  advice  is  not  honest,  then  they 
are  unfair  to  me.  Certainly  they  should  wish 
me  to  pursue  the  course  that  will  make  the 
fewer  converts,  and  yet  they  tell  me  how  my^ 
influence  could  be  increased !" 

THE  MERCENARY  BOGY. 

^  His  enemies  called  him  mercenary,  saying 

^    that  he  lectured  only  for  money,  and  cited  the 

unselfish  example  of  the  priests  and  preachers 

who  gave  the  gospel  freely,  "without  money  and 

^'     without  price."    To  such  he  replied :  "Is  it  pos- 


74  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

sible  that,  after  preachers  have  had  the  field  for 
eighteen  hundred  years,  the  way  to  make  money 
is  to  attack  the  clergy?  Is  this  intended  as  a 
slander  against  me,  or  against  the  ministers? 

"The  trouble  is  that  my  arguments  cannot 
be  answered.  All  the  preachers  in  the  world 
cannot  prove  that  slavery  is  better  than  liberty. 
They  cannot  show  that  all  have  not  an  equal 
right  to  think.  They  cannot  show  that  all  have 
not  an  equal  right  to  express  their  thoughts. 
They  cannot  show  that  a  decent  God  will  punish 
a  decent  man  for  making  the  best  guess  he 
can." 

"Not  one  of  the  orthodox  ministers  dares  to 
preach  what  he  thinks,  if  he  knows  a  majority  of 
his  congregation  thinks  otherwise.  He  knows 
that  every  member  of  his  church  stands  guard 
over  his  brain  v/ith  a  creed,  like  a  club,  in  his 
hand.  He  knows'  that  he  is  not  expected  to 
search  after  the  truth,  but  that  he  is  employed  to 
defend  the  creed.  Every  pulpit  is  a  pillory,  in 
which  stands  a  hired  culprit,  defending  the  jus- 
tice of  his  own  imprisonment." 

"I  do  not  depend  upon  lecturing  for  my 
living.  I  am  free,  and  my  audiences  are  free. 
They  are  under  no  obligation  to  attend.  They 
want  to  hear  me  and  cheerfully  pay  the  price. 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  75 

If  I  did  not  charge  for  admission,  Christians 
would  say,  as  some  envious  one  have  said,  that 
.  only  the  lowest  and  vilest  in  a  community  flock 
w  to  hear  me."  Just  the  contrary,  of  course,  was 
true,  and  these  very  slanderers — many  of  them 
— ^wrote  from  every  part  of  the  land  begging 
him  to  lecture  for  the  benefit  of  this  or  that 
church  or  "cause"  and  give  them  the  "proceeds." 
The  pastor  of  a  colored  Baptist  church  in 
Texas  once  asked  a  contribution  to  help  put  a 
new  roof  on  his  church,  to  replace  one  that  had 
been  carried  away  by  the  wind.  The  Colonel 
wrote  that  it  looked  to  him  as  if  God  did  not 
want  a  new  roof  there,  or  he  would  not  have 
blown  the  old  one  off.  Besides,  he  did  not  see 
why  any  Baptist  church  should  need  a  roof; 
— "The  wetter  the  better."  Nevertheless,  he  sent 
some  help  out  of  sympathy  for  the  race  that  was 
struggling  to  rise,  and  that  he  had  so  often  and 
so  earnestly  befriended ;  but  he  said  it  passed  his 
comprehension, — except  on  the  ground  of  their 
well-known  superstition, — how  an  enslaved  race 
could  love  a  book  that  favored  slavery,  or  a  God 
worshiped  by  a  slaveholder, — how  an  intelligent 
colored  man  or  woman  could  ever  be  a 
Christian ! 
^  Keplying  further  to  those  who  said,  "He  can 


76  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

afford  to  preach  his  blasphemy, — it  brings  him 
applause  as  well  as  pecuniary  reward,"  he  used 
to  say  that  it  was  the  greatest  of  compliments, 
— an  admission  that  his  views  were  getting 
popular  and  worth  paying  to  hear.  As  we  have 
seen,  he  was  not  an  avaricious  man,  but  magnifi- 
cently otherwise.  He  was  ever  more  a  spend- 
thrift than  a  miser.  There  never  lived  a  more 
prodigally  generous  soul.  There  was  not  a 
mean  or  sordid  drop  of  blood  in  all  his  veins. 
Nor  did  he  care  for  mere  personal  popularity, — 
avoided  rather  than  courted  it.  He  did  delight 
in  noting  year  by  year  the  growing  acceptance 
of  his  teachings.  Once,  after  a  visit  to  New 
England,  he  said:  **If  I  had  spoken  as  freely 
in  Salem  thirty  years  ago,  as  I  have  spoken  in 
Salem  to-night,  they  would  have  burned  me  at 
the  stake."  He  was  fond  of  saying  that  since  he 
had  been  trying  to  extinguish  the  flames,  the 
climate  of  hell  had  grown  preceptibly  cooler. 

WHAT  HIS  VIEWS  COST  HIM. 

The  world  little  knows  how  much  it  cost 
Mr.  Ingersoll  to  speak  his  honest  thought,  to 
utter  the  sincere  and  profound  convictions  of 
his  conscience,  the  voice  of  his  inmost  soul.  If 
sacrifice  of  earthly  honors  and  emoluments,  of 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  77 

place  and  power, — prizes  as  dear  to  most  men 
as  their  lives, — is  evidence  of  sincerity  and  de- 
votion to  principle,  Mr.  Ingersoll  was  sublimely 
sincere,  unselfish,  and  self-sacrificing,  and 
truthful  history  will  so  record  him. 

His  heterodoxy  cost  him  the  Governorship  of 
Illinois.  A  delegation  made  up  of  friends  and 
admirers  of  both  political  parties,  urged  his 
acceptance  of  the  nomination,  which  meant  cer- 
tain election,  but  coupled  the  offer  with  the  con- 
dition that  he  pledge  himself  not  to  touch  on 
religious  topics  during  the  campaign.  He  de- 
clined the  nomination.  He  would  have  made 
an  ideal  Governor.  His  large  acquaintance 
with  public  men  and  measures,  his  own  experi- 
ence as  a  public  official — as  Attorney-General 
of  the  State — his  fame  as  a  campaign  orator, 
his  recognized  ability  and  integrity,  his  ardent 
patriotism  and  fearless  advocacy  of  the  rights 
of  man,  and  his  world-wide  human  sympathies, 
— all  his  great  gifts  and  endowments, — marked 
him  as  one  worthy  of  the  highest  civic  honors. 

But  he  did  not  covet  office.  He  rejected  all 
overtures  in  that  direction.  His  friends  often 
broached  the  subject.  He  refused  to  consider 
it.  He  was  offered  the  post  of  Minister  to  Ger- 
many in  1877,  but  declined  it.     In  1882  a  dele- 


78  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

gation  in  Washington  waited  on  him  seeking 
his  consent  to  be  a  candidate  for  the  Presidency 
of  the  United  States.  He  declined  the  honor, 
saying  that  on  no  account  would  he  permit  the 
use  of  his  name.  "I  do  not  wish,"  he  said,  "to 
bring  the  heat  and  rancor  of  religious  discussion 
and  dissension  into  politics."  No  office  would 
have  been  too  great  or  high  for  him  to  reach  and 
fill  had  he  consented  to  conceal  his  real  thought, 
to  be  a  time-server  and  a  hypocrite. 

NOT  A  LEADER. 

He,  in  fact,  aspired  to  no  personal  leader- 
ship of  any  kind.  He  asked  for  no  "disciples," 
sought  no  "followers."  He  wanted  men  to 
think  his  way,  but  to  carry  out  their  convictions 
in  their  own  way;  he  would  not  lead  them.  He 
was  not  a  proselytist  or  a  propagandist.  He 
could  have  founded  a  school,  a  sect,  a  system. 
He  would  not.  He  disliked  and  discouraged 
the  use  of  the  term  "Ingersollism"  that  some 
applied  to  his  views,  and  disavowed  and,  so  far 
as  he  could,  prevented  the  spread  of  it.  He  was, 
and  wanted  to  be  known  as,  an  "Individualist." 

He  did  not  fully  favor  organizations  on  the 
lines  of  religious  or  anti-religious  belief;  was 
not  always  in  sympathy  with  Freethought  or 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  79 

Liberal  organizations,  as  such.  Although  he 
agreed  iii  the  main  with  their  principles  and 
aims  he  could  not  always  endorse  or  commend 
their  methods,  and  because  of  such  disagree- 
ment at  one  time  resigned  the  presidency  of  the 
Liberal  League.  His  trouble  with  these  so- 
cieties was  that  like  most  fraternal  associations, 
with  all  their  merits  and  uses,  they  tended  to 
foster  exclusiveness,  class  distinctions  and  sec- 
tarianism. He  did  not  believe  in  caste,  he  did 
not  divide  society  into  sheep  and  goats,  good  and 
bad,  sinners  and  saints,  but  into  plain  men 
and  women  without  their  emblems  or  regalia. 
Many  of  his  friends  thought  him  wrong  in  this 
attitude  of  aloofness,  considered  him  unduly 
sensitive  and  ideal,  but  he  was  satisfied  with 
his  ideal;  he  only  wished  as  an  individual  unit 
in  society  to  act  his  own  part  well,  to  think  and 
speak  and  act  from  the  best  and  highest  in  him, 
and  to  help  others  do  the  same.  While  not 
condemning  orders  and  unions  and  fraternities, 
but  recognizing  their  value  and  the  need  of 
combination  and  co-operation  to  effect  certain 
ends  for  the  general  welfare,  he  yet  felt  that  in 
the  individual  lay  the  real  power  to  improve 
and  regenerate  society.  His  broader  member- 
ship was  with  the  race.    Each  man  he  held  a 


80  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

brother,  if  he  could  find  in  him  a  man,  and  he 
despised  no  one,  however  lowly,  for  the  mere 
accident  of  birth  or  circumstance. 

His  charity  and  compassion  were  unbound- 
ed. He  could  see  and  condone  the  faults  and 
frailties  of  others.  "He  does  as  he  must,"  was 
his  theorem  explaining  all  human  action.  He 
was  broad  and  universal  enough  to  announce 
this  splendid  creed :  "The  firmament  inlaid  with 
stars  is  the  dome  of  the  real  cathedral.  The 
interpreters  of  nature  are  the  true  and  only 
priests.  In  the  great  creed  are  all  the  truths 
that  lips  have  uttered,  and  in  the  real  litany 
will  be  found  all  the  ecstasies  and  aspirations 
of  the  soul,  all  dreams  of  joy,  all  hopes  for 
nobler,  fuller  life.  The  real  church,  the  real 
edifice,  is  adorned  and  glorified  with  all  that 
Art  has  done.  In  the  real  choir  is  all  the  thrill- 
ing music  of  the  world,  and  in  the  starlit  aisles 
have  been,  and  are,  the  grandest  souls  of  every 
land  and  clime. 

"There  is  no  darkness  but  ignorance." 

"Let  US  flood  the  world  with  intellectual 
light." 


y 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  81 

VI. 

LIBERTY. 

Here  let  me  state  in  his  own  unequalled 
words  and  way  a  few  of  his  many  lofty  senti- 
ments. Of  Liberty  he  said:  "0  Liberty,  thou 
art  the  god  of  my  idolatry!'*  It  was  one  of 
his  most  fervent  apostrophes.  He  worshiped 
at  its  shrine.  It  was  his  dream,  his  ideal,  his 
hope  for  man.  He  was  one  of  its  greatest 
apostles.  More  than  any  man  of  his  day  he 
wrote  and  spoke  and  labored  for  an  unshackled 
healthy  brain,  an  untrammelled  truthful  tongue. 

His  attitude  concerning  freedom  of  thought, 
and  its  expression,  he  gives  us  in  these  emphatic 
V7ords,  taken  from  the  opening  of  his  "Liberty" 
lecture : 

"There  rs  no  slavery  but  ignorance.  Lib- 
erty is  the  child  of  intelligence." 

"Only  a  few  years  ago  there  was  a  great 
awakening  of  the  human  mind.  Men  began  to 
inquire  by  what  right  a  crowned  robber  made 
them  work  for  him.  The  man  who  asked  this 
question  was  called  a  traitor.  Others  asked  by 
what  right  does  a  robed  hypocrite  rule  my 
thought?     Such  men  were  called  infidels.     The 


82  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

priest  said,  and  the  king  said,  where  is  this 
spirit  of  investigation  to  stop?  They  said  th^^n 
and  they  say  now,  that  it  is  dangerous  for  mcin 
to  be  free.  I  deny  it.  Out  on  the  intellectual 
ocean  there  is  room  enough  for  every  sail.  In 
the  intellectual  air  there  is  space  enough  for 
every  wing. 

"The  man  who  does  not  do  his  own  thinking 
is  a  slave,  and  is  a  traitor  to  himself  and  to  his 
fellow-men. 

"Every  man  should  stand  under  the  blue  and 
stars,  under  the  infinite  flag  of  nature,  the  peer 
of  every  other  man. 

"Standing  in  the  presence  of  the  Unknown, 
all  have  the  same  right  to  think,  and  all  are 
equally  interested  in  the  great  questions  of  ori- 
gin and  destiny.  All  I  claim,  all  I  plead  for, 
is  liberty  of  thought  and  expression.  That  is 
all. 

"I  do  not  pretend  to  tell  all  the  truth.  I 
do  not  claim  that  I  have  floated  level  with  the 
heights  of  thought,  or  that  I  have  descended 
to  the  very  depths  of  things.  I  simply  claim 
that  what  ideas  I  have,  I  have  a  right  to  ex- 
press; and  that  any  man  who  denies  that  right 
to  me  is  an  intellectual  thief  and  robber.  That 
is  all." 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  83 

"I  swear  that  while  I  live  I  will  do  what  little 
I  can  to  preserve  and  to  augment  the  liberties 
of  man,  woman,  and  child. 

"It  is  a  question  of  justice,  of  mercy,  of  hon- 
esty, of  intellectual  development.  If  there  is  a 
man  in  the  world  who  is  not  willing  to  give  to 
every  human  being  every  right  he  claims  for 
himself,  he  is  just  so  much  nearer  a  barbarian 
than  I  am.  It  is  a  question  of  honesty.  The 
man  who  is  not  willing  to  give  to  every  other 
the  same  intellectual  rights  he  claims  for  him- 
self, is  dishonest,  selfish,  and  brutal." 

"This  is  my  doctrine:  Give  every  other  hu- 
man being  every  right  you  claim  for  yourself. 
Keep  your  mind  open  to  influences  of  nature. 
Receive  new  thoughts  with  hospitality.  Let  us 
advance." 

"As  far  as  I  am  concerned  I  wish  to  be  out 
on  the  high  seas.  I  wish  to  take  my  chances 
with  wind,  and  wave,  and  star.  And  I  had 
rather  go  down  in  the  glory  and  grandeur  of 
the  storm,  than  rot  in  any  orthodox  harbor." 

"As  a  man  develops,  he  places  a  greater 
value  upon  his  own  rights.  Liberty  becomes  a 
grander  and  diviner  thing.  As  he  values  his 
own  rights  he  begins  to  value  the  rights  of 
others.    And  when  all  men  give  to  all  others  all 


84  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

the  rights  they  claim  for  themselves,  this  world 
will  be  civilized." 

"We  have  advanced.  We  have  reaped  the 
benefit  of  every  sublime  and  heroic  self-sacrifice, 
of  every  divine  and  brave  act;  and  we  should 
endeavor  to  hand  the  torch  to  the  next  genera- 
tion, having  added  a  little  to  the  intensity  and 
glory  of  the  flame." 

"With  every  drop  of  my  blood  I  hate  and 
execrate  every  form  of  tyranny,  every  form  of 
slavery.     I  hate  dictation.     I  love  liberty. 

"What  do  I  mean  by  liberty?  By  physical 
liberty  I  mean  the  right  to  do  anything  which 
does  not  interfere  with  the  happiness  of  an- 
other. By  intellectual  liberty  I  mean  the  right 
to  think  right  and  the  right  to  think  wrong. 
Thought  is  the  means  by  which  we  endeavor  to 
arrive  at  truth. 

"Should  I  not  give  the  real  transcript  of  my 
mind?  Or  should  I  turn  hypocrite  and  pretend 
what  I  do  not  feel,  and  hate  myself  forever 
after  for  being  a  cringing  coward?" 

"Above  all  creeds,  above  all  religions,  after 
all,  is  that  divine  thing, — Humanity;  and  now 
and  then  in  shipwreck  on  the  wide,  wild  sea,  or 
'mid  the  rocks  and  breakers  of  some  cruel  shore, 
or  where  the  serpents  of  flame  writhe  and  hiss, 


AN  Intimate  view  85 

some  glorious  heart,  some  chivalric  soul  does  a 
deed  that  glitters  like  a  star,  and  gives  the  lie 
to  all  the  dogmas  of  superstition.  All  these 
frightful  doctrines  have  been  used  to  degrade 
and  to  enslave  mankind. 

"Away,  forever  away,  with  the  creeds  and 
books  and  forms  and  laws  and  religions  that 
take  from  the  soul  liberty  and  reason.  Down 
with  the  idea  that  thought  is  dangerous!  Per- 
ish the  infamous  doctrine  that  man  can  have 
property  in  man.  Let  us  resent  with  indigna- 
tion every  effort  to  put  a  chain  upon  our  minds. 
If  there  is  no  God,  certainly  we  should  not  bow 
and  cringe  and  crawl.  If  there  is  a  God,  there 
should  be  no  slave." 

"0  Liberty,  thou  art  the  god  of  my  idolatry! 
Thou  art  the  only  deity  that  hateth  bended 
knees.  In  thy  vast  and  unwalled  temple,  be- 
neath the  roofless  dome,  star-gemmed  and  lum- 
inous with  suns,  thy  worshipers  stand  erect! 
They  do  not  cringe,  or  crawl,  or  bend  their  fore- 
heads to  the  earth.  The  dust  has  never  borne 
the  impress  of  their  lips.  Upon  thy  altars 
mothers  do  not  sacrifice  their  babes,  nor  men 
their  rights.  Thou  askest  naught  from  man  ex- 
cept the  things  that  good  men  hate — the  wh^'p, 
the  chain,  the  dungeon  key.  Thou  hast  no  popes, 


86  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

no  priests,  who  stand  between  their  fellow-men 
and  thee.  Thou  carest  not  for  foolish  forms,  or 
selfish  prayers.  At  thy  sacred  shrine  hypocrisy 
does  not  bow,  virtue  does  not  tremble,  supersti- 
tion's feeble  tapers  do  not  burn,  but  Reason 
holds  aloft  her  inextinguishable  torch  whose 
holy  light  will  one  day  flood  the  world." 

TRUTH. 

He  exalted  Truth — pure,  unadulterated,  un- 
masked. "Sacred  are  the  lips,"  he  said,  ''from 
which  has  issued  only  truth." 

"Truth  is  the  intellectual  wealth  of  the 
world. 

"The  noblest  of  occupations  is  to  search  for 
truth. 

"Truth  is  the  foundation,  the  superstruc- 
ture, and  the  glittering  dome  of  progress. 

"Truth  is  the  mother  of  joy.  Truth  civil- 
izes, ennobles,  and  purifies.  The  grandest  am- 
bition that  can  enter  the  soul  is  to  know  the 
truth. 

"Truth  gives  man  the  greatest  power  for 
good.  Truth  is  sword  and  shield.  It  is  the 
sacred  light  of  the  soul. 

"The  man  who  finds  a  truth  lights  a  torch." 

"Sacred  are  the  lips  from  which  has  issued 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  87 

only  truth.  Over  all  wealth,  above  all  station, 
above  the  noble,  the  robed  and  crowned,  rises  the 
sincere  man.  Happy  is  the  man  who  neither 
paints  nor  patches,  veils  nor  veneers!  Blessed 
is  he  who  wears  no  mask." 

LOVE. 

He  exalted  and  enthroned  the  god  of  Love, — 
of  sacred  human  love.  In  words  that  elsewhere 
have  no  counterpart,  he  has  embalmed  for  us 
his  thought  in  this  marvellous  piece  of  literary 
amber: 

"Love  is  the  only  bow  on  Life's  dark  cloud. 
It  is  the  Morning  and  the  Evening  Star.  It 
shines  upon  the  cradle  of  the  babe,  and  sheds 
its  radiance  on  the  quiet  tomb.  It  is  the  mother 
of  Art — inspirer  of  poet,  patriot  and  philoso- 
pher. It  is  the  air  and  light  of  every  heart — 
builder  of  every  home — kindler  of  every  fire  on 
every  hearth.  It  was  the  first  to  dream  of  im- 
mortality. It  fills  the  world  with  melody,  for 
music  is  the  voice  of  Love.  Love  is  the  magi- 
cian, the  enchanter,  that  changes  worthless 
things  to  joy,  and  makes  right  royal  kings  and 
queens  of  common  clay.  It  is  the  perfume  of 
that  wondrous  flower — the  heart — and  without 
that  sacred  passion,  that  divine  swoon,  we  are 


88  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

less  than  beasts — but  with  it,  earth  is  heaven, 
and  we  are  gods/' 

LIFE. 

Has  any  one  but  the  immortal  bard  ever  pro- 
duced a  parallel  to  this  living  portrait  of  a 
human  life, — of  his  own  life, — from  the  cradle 
to  the  grave? 

**Born  of  bve  and  hope,  of  ecstacy  and  pain, 
of  agony  and  fear,  of  tears  and  joy — dowered 
with  the  wealth  of  two  united  hearts — held  in 
happy  arms,  with  lips  upon  life's  drifted  font 
blue-veined  and  fair,  where  perfect  peace  finds 
perfect  form — rocked  by  willing  feet  and  wooed 
to  shadovry  shores  of  sleep  by  siren  mother  sing- 
ing soft  and  low — looking  with  wonder's  wide 
and  startled  eyes  at  common  things  of  life  and 
day — taught  by  want  and  wish  and  contact  with 
the  things  that  touch  the  dimpled  flesh  of  babes 
— lured  by  light  and  flame,  and  charmed  by 
color's  wondrous  robes — learning  the  use  of 
hands  and  feet,  and  by  the  love  of  mimicry 
beguiled  to  utter  speech — releasing  prisoned 
thoughts  from  crabbed  and  curious  marks  on 
soiled  and  tattered  leaves — ^puzzling  the  brain 
with  crooked  numbers  and  their  changing,  tan- 
gled worth — and  so  through  years  of  alternat- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  89 

ing  day  and  night,  until  the  captive  grows  fami- 
liar with  the  chains  and  walls  and  limitations 
of  a  life. 

"And  time  runs  on  in  sun  and  shade,  until 
the  one  of  all  the  world  is  wooed  and  won,  and 
all  the  lore  of  love  is  taught  and  learned  again. 
Again  a  home  is  built  with  the  fair  chamber 
wherein  faint  dreams,  like  cool  and  shadowy 
vales  divide  the  billowed  hours  of  love.  Again 
the  miracle  of  a  birth — the  pain  and  joy,  the  kiss 
of  welcome  and  the  cradle-song  drowning  the 
drowsy  prattle  of  a  babe. 

"And  then  the  sense  of  obligation  and  of 
wrong — pity  for  those  who  toil  and  weep — tears 
for  the  imprisoned  and  despised — love  for  the 
generous  dead,  and  in  the  heart  the  rapture  of 
a  high  resolve. 

"And  then  ambition,  with  its  lust  of  pelf  and 
place  and  power,  longing  to  put  upon  its  breast 
distinction's  worthless  badge.  Then  keener 
thoughts  of  men,  and  eyes  that  see  behind  the 
^miling  mask  of  craft — flattered  no  more  by  the 
obsequious  cringe  of  gain  and  greed — knowing 
the  uselessness  of  hoarded  gold — of  honor 
bought  from  those  who  charge  the  usury  of  self- 
respect — of  power  that  only  bends  a  coward's 
knees  and  forces  from  the  lips  of  fear  the  lies 


9a  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

of  praise.  Knowing  at  last  the  unstudied  ges- 
ture of  esteem,  the  reverent  eyes  made  rich  with 
honest  thought,  and  holding  high  above  all  other 
things — high  as  hope's  great  throbbing  star 
above  the  darkness  of  the  dead — the  love  of  wife 
and  child  and  friend. 

"Then  locks  of  gray,  and  growing  love  of 
other  days  and  half-remembered  things — then 
holding  withered  hands  of  those  who  first  held 
his,  while  over  dim  and  loving  eyes  death  softly 
presses  down  the  lids  of  rest. 

"And  so,  locking  in  marriage  vows  his  child- 
ren's hands  and  crossing  others  on  the  breasts 
of  peace,  with  daughter's  babes  upon  his  knees, 
the  white  hair  mingling  with  the  gold,  he  jour- 
neys on  from  day  to  day  to  that  horizon  where 
the  dusk  is  waiting  for  the  night. — At  last,  sit- 
ting by  the  holy  hearth  of  home  as  evenings' 
embers  change  from  red  to  gray,  he  falls  asleep 
within  the  arms  of  her  he  worshiped  and  adored, 
feeling  upon  his  pallid  lips  love's  last  and  holi- 
est kiss." 

Nor  has  this  autograph  of  his  own  life  ever 
been  supplemented  with  a  finer  touch  than  he 
gives  us  in  these  lines:  "Life  is  a  shadowy, 
strange,  and  winding  road  on  which  we  travel 
for  a  little  way — a  few  short  steps — ^just  from 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  91 

the  cradle,  with  its  lullaby  of  love,  to  the  low 
and  quiet  way-side  inn,  where  all  at  last  must 
sleep,  and  where  the  only  salutation  is — Good- 
night!" Or  that  other  peerless  paragraph, 
which  I  here  requote,  from  the  tribute  to  his 
brother  Ebon:  "Life  is  a  narrow  vale  between 
the  cold  and  barren  peaks  of  two  eternities. 
We  strive  in  vain  to  look  beyond  the  heights. 
We  cry  aloud,  and  the  only  answer  is  the  echo 
of  our  wailing  cry.  From  the  voiceless  lips  of 
the  unreplying  dead  there  comes  no  word;  but 
in  the  night  of  death  hope  sees  a  star  and  listen- 
ing love  can  hear  the  rustle  of  a  wing." 

HOPE. 

Of  Hope  he  has  beautifully  said:  "Hope  is 
the  only  bee  that  makes  honey  without  flowers." 

"Hope  is  the  consolation  of  the  world. 

"The  wanderers  hope  for  home. — Hope 
builds  the  house  and  plants  the  flowers  and  fills 
the  air  with  song. 

"The  sick  and  suffering  hope  for  health. — 
Hope  gives  them  health  and  paints  the  roses  in 
their  cheeks. 

"The  lonely,  the  forsaken,  hope  for  love. — 
Hope  brings  the  lover  to  their  arms.  They  feel 
the  kisses  on  their  eager  lips. 


92  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

"The  poor  in  tenements  and  huts,  in  spfte  of 
rags  and  hunger,  hope  for  wealth. — Hope  fills 
their  thin  and  trembling  hands  with  gold. 

"The  dying  hopes  that  death  is  but  another 
birth,^  and  Love  leans  above  the  pallid  face  and 
whispers,  'We  shall  meet  again.* 

"Let  us  hope,  that  if  there  be  a  God,  he 
is  wise  and  good. 

"Let  us  hope  that  if  there  be  another  life,  it 
will  bring  peace  and  joy  to  all  the  children  of 
men. 

"And  let  us  hope  that  this  poor  earth  on 
which  we  live,  may  be  a  perfect  world — a  world 
without  a  crime — without  a  tear." 

And  following  this,  to  express  his  own  feel- 
ing and  purpose  in  his  work,  he  said:  "I  would 
not  for  anything  blot  out  the  faintest  star  that 
shines  in  the  horizon  of  human  despair,  or  in 
the  sky  of  human  hope ;  but  I  will  do  what  I  can 
to  get  the  infinite  shadow  of  eternal  torment  out 
of  the  heart  of  man." 

^  Of  the  hope  of  a  future  life  he  said:  "The 
idea  of  immortality,  that  like  a  sea  has  ebbed 
and  flowed  in  the  human  heart,  with  its  count- 
less waves  of  hope  and  fear  beating  against  the 
shores  and  rocks  of  time  and  fate,  was  not  born 
of  any  book,  nor  of  any  creed,  nor  of  any  re- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  93 

ligion.  It  was  born  of  human  affection,  and  it 
will  continue  to  ebb  and  flow  beneath  the  mists 
and  clouds  of  doubt  and  darkness  as  long  as 
love  kisses  the  lips  of  death.  It  is  the  rainbow, 
Hope,  shining  upon  the  tears  of  grief."   . 

HOME. 

Who,  with  lip  or  pen  or  brush,  save  only 
Robert  Burns,  has  ever  given  us  as  graphic  or 
exalted  pictures  of  the  fireside  as  Robert  G.  In- 
gersoll?  He  glorified,  even  as  he  exemplified, 
the  joys  and  virtues  of  domestic  life.  He  said, 
"The  home  where  virtue  dwells  with  love  is  like 
a  lily  with  a  heart  of  fire — the  fairest  flower  in 
all  the  world."  ''The  holiest  temple  beneath  the 
stars  is  a  home  that  love  has  built.  And  the 
holiest  altar  in  all  the  wide  world  is  the  fireside 
around  which  gather  father  and  mother  and  the 
sweet  babes." 

"If  in  this  world  there  is  anything  splendid, 
it  is  a  home  where  all  are  equals." 

"Around  the  fireside  cluster  the  private  and 
the  public  virtues  of  our  race." 

"The  home,  after  all,  is  the  unit  of  civiliza- 
tion, of  good  government." 

"Without  the  family  relation  there  is  no  life 


94  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

worth  living.  Every  good  government  is  made 
up  of  good  families." 

* 'Nothing  is  more  important  to  America 
than  that  the  babes  of  America  should  be  born 
around  the  fireside  of  home." 

"If  upon  this  earth  we  ever  have  a  glimpse 
of  heaven,  it  is  when  we  pass  a  home  in  winter, 
at  night,  and  through  the  windows,  the  curtains 
drawn  aside,  we  see  the  family  about  the  pleas- 
ant hearth ;  the  old  lady  knitting ;  the  cat  play- 
ing with  the  yarn;  the  children  wishing  they 
had  as  many  dolls  or  dollars  or  knives  or  some- 
things, as  there  are  sparks  going  out  to  join  the 
roaring  blast ;  the  father  reading  and  smoking, 
and  the  clouds  rising  like  incense  from  the 
altar  of  domestic  joy.  I  never  passed  such  a 
house  without  feeling  that  I  had  received  a 
benediction." 

"Honor,  place,  fame,  glory,  riches — they  are 
ashes,  smoke,  dust,  disappointment,  unless  there 
is  somebody  in  the  world  you  love,  somebody 
who  loves  you;  unless  there  is  some  place  that 
you  can  call  home,  some  place  where  you  can 
feel  the  arms  of  children  around  your  neck, 
some  place  that  is  made  absolutely  sacred  by 
the  love  of  others." 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  95 

AMBITION. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  was  ambitious.  He  consider- 
ed true  ambition  to  be  the  father  of  progress. 
Every  man,  he  said,  should  have  a  worthy  ideal, 
and  strive  to  attain  it  by  all  the  best  and  highest 
in  him.  But  his  ambition  was  not  for  place  or 
power, — ^he  did  not  want  to  rule  anybody.  He 
craved  no  laurels  won  on  fields  of  conquest  or 
aggression.  His  ideals  were  higher.  His 
goal  was  human  happiness — "the  greatest  good 
of  the  greatest  number,"  and  he  welcomed  and 
extolled  everything  that  contributed  to  it.  He 
sought  the  richer  prizes  of  life  in  the  private 
and  civic  virtues — in  the  fields  of  art  and 
thought,  invention  and  discovery,  and  in  the 
fruits  of  skilful  industry  of  hand  and  brain. 
Above  all,  he  placed  the  aristocracy  of  the  fire- 
side, and  esteemed  the  kind  and  just  man,  the 
loving  father  and  husband,  the  peer  of  prince 
and  potentate.  He  loved  to  quote  these  lines  of 
Burns  on  domestic  felicity: 

"To  make  a  happy  fireside  clime 
For  weans  and  wife, 
Is  the  true  pathos  and  sublime 
Of  human  life." 

And  by  way  of  contrast  he  paints  for  us  this 


96  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

vivid  picture  of  Napoleon  the  Great  and  the 
humble  but  happy  French  peasant: 

"A  little  while  ago,  I  stood  by  the  grave  of 
the  old  Napoleon — a  magnificent  tomb  of  gilt 
and  gold,  fit  almost  for  a  deity  dead — and  gazed 
upon  the  sarcophagus  of  rare  and  nameless 
marble,  where  rest  at  last  the  ashes  of  that  rest- 
less man.  I  leaned  over  the  balustrade  and 
thought  about  the  career  of  the  greatest  soldier 
of  the  modern  world. 

"I  saw  him  walking  upon  the  banks  of  the 
Seine,  contemplating  suicide.  I  saw  him  at 
Toulon — I  saw  him  putting  down  the  mob  in 
the  streets  of  Paris — I  saw  him  at  the  head  of 
the  army  of  Italy — I  saw  him  crossing  the 
bridge  of  Lodi  with  the  tri-color  in  his  hand — 
I  saw  him  in  Egypt  in  the  shadows  of  the  Pyra- 
mids— I  saw  him  conquer  the  Alps  and  mingle 
the  eagles  of  France  with  the  eagles  of  the 
crags.  I  saw  him  at  Marengo — at  Ulm  and 
Austerlitz.  I  saw  him  in  Russia,  where  the 
infantry  of  the  snow  and  the  cavalry  of  the  wild 
blast  scattered  his  legions  like  winter's  withered 
leaves.  I  saw  him  at  Leipsic  in  defeat  and  dis- 
aster— driven  by  a  million  bayonets  back  upon 
Paris — clutched  like  a  wild  beast — banished  to 
Elba.     I  saw  him  escape  and  retake  an  empire 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  97 

by  the  force  of  his  genius.  I  saw  him  upon  the 
frightful  field  of  Waterloo,  where  Chance  and 
Fate  combined  to  wreck  the  fortunes  of  their 
former  king.  And  I  saw  him  at  St.  Helena, 
with  his  hands  crossed  behind  him,  gazing  out 
upon  the  sad  and  solemn  sea. 

"I  thought  of  the  orphans  and  widows  he 
had  made — of  the  tears  that  had  been  shed  for 
his  glory,  and  of  the  only  woman  who  ever  loved 
him,  pushed  from  his  heart  by  the  cold  hand  of 
ambition.  And  I  said,  I  would  rather  have  been 
a  French  peasant  and  worn  wooden  shoes.  I 
would  rather  have  lived  in  a  hut  with  a  vine 
growing  over  the  door,  and  the  grapes  growing 
purple  in  the  kisses  of  the  Autumn  sun. 
I  would  rather  have  been  that  poor  peasant, 
with  my  loving  wife  by  my  side,  knitting 
as  the  day  died  out  of  the  sky — with  my  child- 
ren upon  my  knees  and  their  arms  about  me — 
I  would  rather  have  been  that  man  and  gone 
down  to  the  tongueless  silence  of  the  dream- 
less dust,  than  to  have  been  that  imperial 
impersonation  of  force  and  murder,  known  as 
Napoleon  the  Great." 


98  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

SCIENCE. 

Everywhere  and  always  he  glorified  the 
Deity  of  Science — child  of  the  blessed  Trinity, 
Reason,  Observation  and  Experience.  His 
works  abound  in  eloquent  praise  of  its  achieve- 
ments.    Among  other  passages  he  gives  us  this : 

"Science  took  a  handful  of  sand,  constructed 
a  telescope,  and  with  it  explored  the  starry 
depths  of  heaven.  Science  wrested  from  the 
gods  their  thunderbolts;  and  now,  the  electric 
spark,  freighted  with  thought  and  love, 
flashes  under  all  the  waves  of  the  sea. 
Science  took  a  tear  from  the  cheek  of  unpaid 
labor,  converted  it  into  steam  and  created  a 
giant  that  turns  with  tireless  arm  the  countless 
wheels  of  toil." 

"Science  is  the  providence  of  man,  the  v/ork- 
er  of  true  miracles,  of  real  wonders.  Science 
has  *read  a  little  in  Nature^s  infinite  book  of 
secrecy.'  Science  knows  the  circuits  of  the 
winds,  the  courses  of  the  stars.  Fire  is  his 
servant,  and  lightning  his  messenger.  Science 
freed  the  slaves  and  gave  liberty  to  their  mas- 
ters. Science  taught  men  to  enchain,  not  his 
fellows,  but  the  forces  of  nature,  forces  that 
have  no  backs  to  be  scarred,  no  limbs  for  chains 


'  AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  99 

to  chill  and  eat,  forces  that  have  no  hearts  to 
break,  forces  that  never  know  fatigue,  forces 
that  shed  no  tears.  Science  is  the  great  physi- 
cian. His  touch  has  given  sight.  He  has  made 
the  lame  to  leap,  the  deaf  to  hear,  the  dumb  to 
speak,  and  in  the  pallid  face  his  hand  has  set  the 
rose  of  health.  Science  has  given  his  beloved 
sleep  and  wrapped  in  happy  dreams  the  throb- 
bing nerves  of  pain.  Science  is  the  destroyer  of 
disease,  builder  of  happy  homes,  the  preserver  of 
life  and  love.  Science  is  the  teacher  of  eveiy  vir- 
tue, the  enemy  of  every  vice.  Science  has  given 
the  true  basis  of  morals,  the  origin  and  office 
of  conscience,  revealed  the  nature  of  obligation, 
of  duty,  of  virtue  in  its  highest,  noblest  forms, 
and  has  demonstrated  that  true  happiness  is  the 
only  possible  good.  Science  has  slain  the  mon- 
sters of  superstition,  and  destroyed  the  author- 
ity of  inspired  books.  Science  has  read  the 
records  of  the  rocks,  records  that  priestcraft 
cannot  change,  and  on  his  wondrous  scales  has 
weighed  the  atom  and  the  star. 

"Science  has  founded  the  only  true  religion. 
Science  is  the  onlji^ Savior  of  this  world." 


100  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

VII. 

THE  "DRESDEN"  EDITION. 

And  SO  I  might  go  on  quoting  and  quoting. 
It  is  difficult  to  forbear.  It  is  a  feast,  mental 
and  spiritual,  to  sit  at  the  banquet  spread  so 
bountifully  for  us  in  the  thirteen  beautiful  vol- 
umes containing  the  published  works  of  Mr. 
Ingersoll  in  their  ^'Dresden"  setting, — so-called 
after  the  little  village  in  New  York  State  which 
was  the  author's  birthplace.  I  am  tempted  to 
linger  at  the  feast  for  more  of  the  delicious  bits 
of  poetry,  philosophy,  feeling,  wit,  wisdom,  hu- 
mor and  loving-kindness  that  abound  on  every 
page  and  in  almost  every  line.  The  limits  of 
this  sketch  forbid  the  indulgence.  Wliat  he  has 
said  on  Education,  Art,  Science, — on  Poetry, 
Music  and  Fiction, — on  Justice,  Liberty,  Equal- 
ity and  the  Rights  of  Man, — On  Worship,  Rev- 
erence and  True  Religion, — on  Orthodoxy  and 
Agnosticism, — on  Government,  Finance,  Domes- 
tic and  Political  Economy,  and  on  a  thousand 
other  living  human  topics — for  he  has  vibrated 
every  chord — would  take  many  more  books  to 
hold,  and  every  book  a  glittering  mine. 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  101 

OPTIMISM  VS.  PESSIMISM. 

Some  called  him  a  pessimist.  He  was  not. 
He  enjoyed  more  than  suffered,  hoped  more  than 
despaired.  It  is  true  that  when  he  considered 
the  agonies  and  miseries  of  life,  the  sickness  and 
disease,  the  poverty  and  crime,  the  ignorance 
and  superstition,  the  follies  and  failures,  the 
human  wrecks  on  every  shore ;  when  he  thought 
of  the  savagery  of  tooth  and  beak  and  claw;  of 
the  fury  of  the  elements, — of  wind  and  fire 
of  flood,  of  earthquakes,  lightnings  and  vol- 
canoes, of  drought  and  pestilence  and  famine 
and  all  the  evils  that  afflict  the  race  from  with- 
out or  within,  and  of  the  final  tragedy  await- 
ing all,  he  groaned  in  spirit  and  felt  and  said 
that  this  was  not  a  good  world.  He  went 
further  and  had  the  courage  that  some  called 
audacity,  and  others  blasphemy,  to  say  what 
millions  think  but  fear  to  say,  that  if,  as  a  man 
he  had  been  given  the  power  and  commission  to 
make  a  world,  he  certainly  would  have  made  a 
better  one  than  this,  or  gone  out  of  the  business ! 
This  was  said  seriously,  not  vaingloriously.  To 
one  who  asked  him  what  improvement  he  would 
suggest  in  the  order  of  things,  he  immediately 


102  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

replied:  "Well,  for  one  thing,   I  would  make 
health  catching  instead  of  disease." 

On  the  other  hand,  when  he  considered  the 
beautiful,  good  and  true;  the  sunshine  and  the 
flowers,  the  blossoming  spring  and  ripening 
harvest ;  the  warm  and  fructifying  showers,  the 
cool  and  shady  glens,  the  vine-clad  hills  and 
richly  verdant  vales  and  all  the  varying  charms 
of  Nature  in  her  gentler  moods;  when  he  saw 
the  roses  on  the  cheeks  of  health,  heard  the  songs 
of  happy  birds  and  hum  of  busy  bees  in  sweet 
pursuit,  and  merry  shouts  of  childi^en  at  their 
play;  when  he  saw  the  many  open  hands  of 
sympathy  and  aid,  the  generous  and  noble  deeds 
of  great  heroic  souls,  the  glorious  triumphs  of 
genius  in  fields  of  art  and  song,  the  wonderful 
achievements  of  science  in  invention  and  dis- 
covery and  the  many  marvellous  products  of  in- 
dustrial skill;  and  when  he  thought  of  happy 
homes  and  loving  hearts  and  helpful  hands 
through  all  the  years, — when  he  looked  and 
thought  on  these  he  hoped,  he  dreamed,  he 
prophesied,  a  brighter  future  for  his  race.  He 
believed  the  world  was  growing  better,  freer, 
happier,  every  day,  and  he  was  doing  what  he 
could  to  make  it  so.  In  prophetic  vision  he  saw 
"Our  country  filled  with  happy  homes,  with 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  103 

firesides  of  content, — the  foremost  land  of  all 
the  earth." 

Looking  into  the  future  with  unclouded  eye, 
he  said: 

"I  see  a  world  where  thrones  have  crumbled 
and  where  kings  are  dust.  The  aristocracy  of 
idleness  has  perished  from  the  earth. 

"I  see  a  world  without  a  slave.  Man  at  last 
is  free.  Nature's  forces  have  by  Science  been 
enslaved.  Lightning  and  light,  wind  and  wave, 
frost  and  flame,  and  all  the  secret,  subtle  powers 
of  earth  and  air  are  the  tireless  toilers  for  the 
human  race. 

"I  see  a  world  at  peace,  adorned  with  every 
form  of  art,  with  music's  myriad  voices  thrilled, 
while  lips  are  rich  with  words  of  love  and  truth ; 
— a  world  in  which  no  exile  sighs,  no  prisoner 
mourns; — a  world  on  which  the  gibbet's  shad- 
ow does  not  fall; — a  world  where  labor  reaps 
its  full  reward ;  where  work  and  worth  go  hand 
in  hand ;  where  the  poor  girl  trying  to  win  bread 
with  the  needle — the  needle  that  has  been  called 
'the  asp  for  the  breast  of  the  poor,' — is  not 
driven  to  the  desperate  choice  of  crime  or  death, 
of  suicide  or  shame. 

"I  see  a  world  without  the  beggar's  out- 
stretched palm,   the   miser's  heartless,   stony 


104  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

stare,  the  piteous  wail  of  want,  the  livid  lips  of 
lies,  the  cruel  eyes  of  scorn. 

"I  see  a  race  without  disease  of  flesh  or 
brain, — shapely  and  fair, — the  married  har- 
mony of  form  and  function, — and,  as  I  look, 
life  lengthens,  joy  deepens,  love  canopies  the 
earth;  and  over  all,  in  the  great  dome,  shines 
the  eternal  star  of  human  hope." 

For  himself,  he  said  that  when  he  struck  the 
balance,  this  life  had  been  to  him  worth  living. 
This  was  optimism. 

HIS  INTELLECTUAL  INTIMATES. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  dwelt  with  all  the  great  and 
noble  souls  that  ever  lived.  They  were  his  ac- 
quaintances, his  friends,  his  intimates.  With 
them  he  held  constant  mental  intercourse.  He 
studied  their  words  and  works,  admired  and 
eulogized  their  lofty  deeds,  their  high  ideals. 
He  rescued  from  the  obloquy  of  spite  and  hate 
the  illustrious  names  of  noble  martyrs  to  the 
truth,  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy, — 
the  names  of  Bruno  and  Spinoza,  Voltaire  and 
Paine,  Hume  and  Elizur  Wright,  with  those  of 
other  great  infidels  and  reformers  of  their  day 
and  time.  He  gloried  in  the  fame  of  all  the 
great  and  good  scientists  and  philosophers, 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  106 

philanthropists  and  patriots  who,  in  the  realms 
of  thought,  and  by  heroic  deeds  in  fields  of 
action,  have  enlarged,  enriched  and  ennobled 
life, — names  that  were  ever  in  his  mind  and 
often  on  his  lips  of  praise, — names  that  will  not 
die, — the  names  of  Darwin,  Huxley,  Spencer 
and  Tyndall;  of  Humboldt  and  Haeckel;  of 
Socrates,  Plato  and  Epictetus;  of  Buddha, 
Brahma  and  Confucius,  Aristotle  and  Aurelius ; 
of  Lincoln  ai>d  Washington,  Franklin  and  Jef- 
ferson; of  Draper  and  Gibbon;  of  Buckle  and 
Locke  and  Lecky;  of  Wilberforce,  Howard, 
Burke  and  Bright;  of  Kossuth,  Lafayette  and 
Rochambeau ;  of  Grant  and  Sherman  and  Sheri- 
dan, Farragut  and  Ericsson — ^with  other  heroes 
in  great  strifes  for  the  Right  and  the  Rights  of 
Man. 

In  the  realms  of  space  he  took  his  flights 
with  Newton  and  Kepler,  Copernicus  and  Gali- 
leo, Herschel  and  Laplace,  with  Proctor  and 
Mitchell,  and  other  dwellers  in  the  infinite  skies, 
companions  of  the  stars,  who  "drew  from  them 
their  secrets  and  told  them  down  to  men."  He 
sailed  the  unknown  seas  with  Columbus  and  the 
Cabots,  with  Magellan  and  the  other  brave  mari- 
ners of  the  dawn,  and  with  them  landed  on  the 
shores  of  a  new  and  wide  and  glorious  world. 


106  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

He  rejoiced  and  shared  in  the  inventions  and 
discoveries  of  Stephenson  and  Watt,  of  Gutten- 
berg  and  Arkwright,  of  Galvani  and  Marconi, 
of  Morse  and  Field,  of  Edison  and  Bell,  and  all 
the  minds  whose  thought  has  widened  out  the 
world  to  commerce,  fellowship  and  final  peace. 
And  above  all,  and  before  all,  he  placed  his  Sha- 
kespeare among  the  immortals,  with  Burns  sing- 
ing by  his  side  the  sweetest  of  Nature's  songs. 
He  believed  that  George  Eliot,  Harriet  Marti- 
neau  and  Mrs.  Browning  were  the  greatest  of 
female  thinkers  and  writers  of  the  English 
world,  and  that  Charles  Dickens  was  the  great- 
est novelist. 

He  was  strongly  emotional  in  temperament. 
A  man  of  his  fine  feeling  and  tender  suscepti- 
bility could  not  be  otherwise.  With  such  a 
nature,  joined  to  a  clear  judgment  and  keen  ap- 
preciation of  the  beautiful  and  great  in  art  and 
men,  it  is  small  wonder  that  he  was  the  ardent 
admirer  of  his  intellectual  comrades,  and  in  elo- 
quent eulogy  extolled  their  words  and  works. 
He  was  enraptured  with  the  music  of  Wagner, 
Beethoven,  Verdi  and  Schubert;  devoted  friend 
of  those  mimic  artists  who  held  the  mirror 
for  him  on  the  stage, — his  Forrests,  Booths  and 
Barretts,  and  his  Rip  Van  Winkle- Jeff ersons. 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  107 

He  exalted,  if  he  could  only  hope  to  emulate,  the 
silver  tongues  of  his  brother  orators,  the  Ciceros, 
Demosthenes',  Lineolns,  Phillips'  and  Beechers 
— and  who  will  say  he  was  not  the  worthy  peer 
of  them  all? 

He  held  in  very  high  regard  those  masters 
of  the  brush  who  painted  his  pictures  for  him, 
his  Angelos  and  Raphaels,  Rembrandts  and  Co- 
rots,  and,  in  truth,  all  the  other  shining  stars 
in  his  heavens — the  writers,  singers,  sculptors, 
artists  and  artisans — a  glorious  company — ^per- 
formers with  him  in  the  wonderful  drama  who 
by  their  genius  have  added  to  the  beauty,  worth 
and  joy  of  life.  His  companionship  was  with 
them  all,  and  he  had  hope,  he  said,  for  the  race 
that  could  produce  and  admire,  exalt  and  emu- 
late such  souls. 

HIS  PRACTICAL  PHILANTHROPY. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  never  lost  sight  of  his  kinship 
with  men.  Recognizing  the  grades  and  classes  of 
humanity,  he  was  ready  at  all  times  to  meet  the 
demands  of  human  sympathy  and  brotherhood. 
Knowing  sadly  enough  the  many  impositions 
practised  by  the  unworthy  poor,  nevertheless, 
his  heart  and  hand  instinctively  opened  to  the 
appeal  of  suffering  and  want.     His  quick  sym- 


108  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

pathies  and  generous  impulses  guided  him,  and 
were  for  him  better  guides  than  cold  and 
calculating  judgment.  He  did  not  stop  to  in- 
quire, to  investigate, — he  gave.  He  relieved 
the  present  necessity,  and  did  not  lecture  or 
preach  to  any  recipient  of  his  bounty.  He  did 
not  reproach  the  weak,  the  ignorant,  or  deprav- 
ed,— he  pitied  and  forgave.  His  attitude  to- 
ward the  sinful  and  sorrowful  was  ever  like 
that  of  the  Peasant  of  Palestine:  ^'Neither  do 
I  condemn  thee." 

He  gave  freely  of  the  treasures  of  his  mind. 
He  counseled,  criticised  and  encouraged  many  in 
their  literary  and  artistic  aspirations.  His 
home  and  office  were  often  like  editorial  sanc- 
tums,— piled  with  authors'  manuscripts  sub- 
mitted for  his  opinion  and  revision.  Scores  of 
introductions,  reviews  of  books,  plays  and  poems 
were  written  by  him  for  those  who  requested  it. 
Recognized  as  an  art  connoisseur  of  fine  percep- 
tion and  rare  judgment,  painters  and  sculptors 
submitted  their  work  to  his  inspection.  He  wel- 
comed and  aided  them. 

"let  us  smoke  in  this  world.*' 

Commercial  travellers  were  fond  of  him  and 
he  of  them.    The  "smoker"  in  the  Pullman  car. 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  109 

the  hotel  lobby  and  his  private  room  were  mild- 
ly invaded  by  them,  seeking  his  acquaintance 
and  regard.  Once  in  the  Southern  Hotel  in 
Saint  Louis  a  young  man  told  his  tale  of  dis- 
couragement. "I  am  travelling  for  a  tobacco 
house,"  he  said,  "and  have  been  in  very  poor 
luck, — ^haven't  made  a  decent  living  for  my  wife 
and  little  family;  won't  you  allow  my  firm  to 
name  a  brand  of  cigars  for  you ;  I'm  sure  they'd 
sell  like  hot  cakes?"  "No  objection,  if  you  make 
it  a  good,  honest  cigar."  "Will  you  give  me 
your  photograph  and  permit  us  to  get  out  a 
handsome  lithograph  to  advertise  the  brand?" 
"No  objection,  if  you  make  it  a  real  portrait  and 
not  a  daub."  "Once  more.  Colonel,  will  you 
give  me  a  'sentiment'  to  accompany  the  brand?" 
"Very  well,  how  will  this  do:  Let  us  smoke  in 
this  world — not  in  the  next?"  The  young  man 
went  on  his  way  rejoicing.  Two  years  after 
he  came  from  New  York  to  Washington  and  in 
grateful  terms  thanked  the  Colonel  for  his  good- 
ness. "The  cigar  has  sold  all  over  the  country," 
he  said,  "and  my  commissions  have  amounted 
to  hundreds  and  hundreds  of  dollars;  in  fact, 
Colonel,  you  have  put  me  on  my  feet  and  in  the 
way  to  comfort  and  success  in  life." 


110  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

"GOING  TO  DENVER." 

At  another  time,  Mr.  Ingersoll  was  travelling 
with  a  party  of  capitalists  who  with  him  were 
inspecting  cattle  ranches  in  New  Mexico.  They 
were  in  a  private  car  going  to  Denver.  One 
evening  after  dinner,  while  they  were  enjoying 
their  cigars,  the  conductor  announced,  "Gentle- 
men, a  tramp  has  curled  himself  up  on  the  rear 
platform  of  your  car ;  shall  I  stop  the  train  and 
put  him  off?"  "Certainly,"  replied  the  leader 
of  the  party,  a  man  many  times  a  millionaire, 
"put  him  off,  and  do  it  without  ceremony." 
"You  will  do  no  such  thing,"  quickly  interrupted 
Colonel  Ingersoll ;  "Let  him  alone,  he  is  doing  no 
harm."  "But  he's  an  intruder,  stealing  a  ride, 
and  how  do  you  know  he  isn't  a  *road-agent,' 
with  accomplices  further  on?"  "No  matter, 
let  him  be;  I  will  go  and  speak  to  him."  Ac- 
companied by  the  writer,  he  went  to  the  rear 
platform.  The  man  at  once  begged  pardon  for 
his  intrusion,  said  that  necessity  alone  impelled 
him,  that  he  was  out  of  work  and  out  of  money, 
that  he  was  a  good  mechanic  and  wanted  to  go 
to  Denver,  where  he  hoped  to  get  employment. 
"Don't  apologize  or  explain  any  further;  I 
understand;"  said  the  Colonel.     "I  have  been 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  HI 

hard  up  myself.  Are  you  hungry."  "Very." 
"Come  with  me;"  and  calling  to  the  cook  he 
said:  "Give  this  man  all  he  wants  to  eat,"  and 
turning  to  his  astonished  guest,  "When  you're 
through  eating  here's  a  good  smoke  for  you," 
handing  him  a  perfecto.  "And  here's  a  little 
boost  for  you  when  you  get  to  Denver,"  draw- 
ing from  his  pocket  a  ten  dollar  greenback. 
"Never  mind," — noticing  a  look  of  hesitation, — 
"it's  all  right,  good  luck,  and  don't  go  out  on 
the  platform  again;  sit  on  this  camp-stool  till 
you  reach  Denver."  Returning,  he  quietly  re- 
sumed his  seat  with  the  party.  "Well,"  asked 
the  capitalist,  "how  about  your  hobo  guest;  have 
you  invited  him  to  keep  us  company  the  rest 
of  the  way?"  "Yes;  to  Denver."  "I  am  sur- 
prised at  you.  Colonel;  here  you  are,  a  distin- 
guished lawyer, — a  railroad  lawyer,  at  that, — 
not  only  winking  at,  but  actually  aiding  and 
abetting  a  gross  violation  of  the  law!  You 
have  a  great  big  heart,  I  know,  and  a  head  to 
match,  but  I  think  this  time  you  have  let  your 
heart  run  away  with  your  head."  "If  all  our 
heads  and  hearts  were  only  half  as  big  as  your 
pocket-book,  we  might  all  be  wealthier  men," 
was  the  Colonel's  quiet  retort. 


112  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

CONSCIENTIOUS. 

He  believed  in  rendering  a  just  and  ample 
reward  for  all  labor  performed.  He  could  not 
bear  to  profit  by  the  ill-paid  toil  or  the  dire 
necessities  of  others.  He  was  not  satisfied  to 
pay  only  the  cheap  market  price  for  goods  re- 
quired. He  went  back  of  the  merchant  to  the 
worker,  and  inquired  into  the  original  cost  of 
many  things.  In  his  purchases  of  garments 
for  personal  wear,  I  have  known  him  to  go  to 
the  maker  direct,  wherever  he  could,  and  pay 
an  enhanced  price — what  he  believed  to  be  near- 
est an  equivalent  for  the  article  bought.  He 
said  he  did  not  want  "something  for  nothing," 
he  wanted  to  pa^  his  way.  He  could  not  and 
would  not  accept  a  money  favor,  even  from  a 
friend,  without  making  an  adequate  return. 
For  years  he  was  complimented  by  railroad  offi- 
cials with  **free  passes"  over  their  lines.  He 
never  solicited  one  of  them.  They  were  freely 
offered.  He  did  not,  out  of  politeness,  refuse 
them,  but  he  did  not  use  them.  He  could  not 
travel  as  a  "dead-head."  He  has  shown  me 
bunches  of  these  passes,  some  of  them  beauti- 
fully executed,  and  in  one  instance  handsomely 
engraved  on  a  small  sterling-silver  plate.    He 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  118 

kept  them  as  souvenirs,  so  he  called  them — re- 
minders that  at  one  time  he  was  himself  presi- 
dent of  a  railroad  in  Illinois.  No  remunera- 
tion in  any  shape  would  he  ever  accept  from 
any  corporation  or  interest,  or  from  any  in- 
dividual, except  in  acknowledgment  of  service 
rendered. 

MISTAKES  AND  SLANDERS. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  sketch  to  enter 
at  large  upon  a  definition  or  defense  of  Mr.  In- 
gersoll's  religious  or  non-religious  views.  He 
alone  could  rightly  define  and  defend  them.  In 
the  popular  mind,  however,  there  is  such  ignor- 
ance, misinformation  and  error,  and  such  mis- 
representation both  of  his  person  and  his  teach- 
ings, that  true  statements,  taken  from  his  own 
lips,  and  an  intimate  view  of  his  character  and 
actions  gained  by  a  long  acquaintance  and  ex- 
ceptional opportunities,  qualify  the  writer  to 
make  a  record  entitled  to  more  than  passing 
attention.  As  for  his  views  on  nearly  all  ques- 
tions of  human  interest,  they  are  am.ply  set  forth 
in  his  writings  and  sayings,  and  happily  extant 
and  available  in  the  authorized  form  before  re- 
ferred to.  They  speak  for  themselves,  and  in 
no  feeble  or  faltering  voice.    He  was  ready  to 


114  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

stand  by  them,  confident  of  the  enlightened 
judgment  of  the  fair  and  free. 

His  character,  motives,  and  meanings  have, 
however,  been  sadly  mistaken,  perverted  and 
maligned.  The  slanders  of  ignorance  and  the 
lies  of  malice  have  too  often  aimed  at  him  their 
poisoned  shafts.  To  show  how  he  received  and 
repelled  these  attacks,  and  if  possible  to  furnish 
an  antidote  for  their  virulence,  is  but  an  act  of 
loyalty  to  truth,  to  justice,  and  to  right,  no  less 
than  to  personal  friendship  and  affection. 

ABUSE  vs.  ARGUMENT. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  knew  well  enough  that  a 
strong  man  using  his  strength  to  combat  pre- 
vailing error — no  matter  on  what  subject — 
would  make  enemies.  This  he  expected  in  his 
own  case  from  the  ignorant,  prejudiced  and  un- 
fair; but  that  professed  champions  of  justice, 
love,  and  truth,  divinely  called  to  speak,  should 
welcome  every  hateful  rumor  and  give  it  cred- 
ence and  circulation  from  pulpit,  press  and  plat- 
form, sometimes  amazed  and  grieved  him,  but 
oftener  excited  his  pity  and  compassion.  "And 
yet,  after  all,"  he  would  say,  "it  is  but  natural 
that  those  who  expect  their  God  to  damn  me 
hereafter,  should  want  to  do  a  little  of  it  here 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  115 

themselves !  Why  do  they  not  answer  my  argu- 
ments? Why  do  not  my  orthodox  foes  fight 
fairly?" 

"I  want  to  say,  that  if  there  is  anything  I 
like  in  the  world  it  is  fairness.  And  one  reason 
I  like  it  so  well  is  that  I  have  had  so  little  of  it. 
I  can  say,  if  I  wish,  extremely  mean  and  hate- 
ful things.  I  have  read  a  great  many  religious 
papers  and  discussions  and  think  that  I  now 
know  all  the  infamous  words  in  our  language. 
I  know  how  to  account  for  every  noble  action 
by  a  mean  and  wretched  motive;  and  that,  in 
my  judgment,  embraces  nearly  the  entire  sci- 
ence of  modern  theology." 

"It  does  seem  to  me  that  if  I  were  a  Chris- 
tian, and  really  thought  my  fellow-man  was 
going  down  to  the  bottomless  pit,  that  he  was 
going  to  misery  and  agony  forever — it  does  seem 
to  me  that  I  would  try  to  save  him.  It  does  seem 
to  me,  that  instead  of  having  my  mouth  filled 
with  epithets  and  invectives ;  instead  of  drawing 
the  lips  of  malice  back  from  the  teeth  of  hatred, 
it  seems  to  me  that  my  eyes  would  be  filled  with 
tears.  It  seems  to  me  that  I  would  do  what 
little  I  could  to  reclaim  him.  I  would  talk  to 
him,  and  of  him,  in  kindness.  I  would  put  the 
arms  of  affection  about  him.     I  would  not  speak 


116  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

of  him  as  though  he  were  a  wild  beast.  I  would 
not  speak  to  him  as  though  he  were  a  brute.  I 
would  think  of  him  as  a  man,  as  a  man  liable 
to  eternal  torture  among  the  damned,  and  my 
heart  would  be  filled  with  sympathy,  not  hatred 
— my  eyes  with  tears,  not  scorn." 

"It  is  a  mystery  to  me  why  the  editors  of 
religious  papers  are  so  malicious,  why  they  en- 
deavor to  answer  argument  with  calumny.  Is 
it  because  they  feel  the  scepter  slowly  slipping 
from  their  hands?  Is  it  the  result  of  impotent 
rage?  Is  it  because  there  is  being  w^ritten  upon 
every  orthodox  brain  a  certificate  of  intellectual 
inferiority?'* 

THE  CLERGY. 

1/ 

It  is  only  natural  to  expect  that  with  this 

personal  experience  he  could  have  no  very  high 

regard  for  the  clergy.     He  could  not  see  why  a 

stripling  just  fledged  from  a  theological  nest 

should  be  called  "Father"  and  "Reverend."     He 

knew  how  ministers  were  made.     It  used  to  be, 

more  than  it  is  now,  considered  an  honor  to 

have  at  least  one  member  of  a  family  "called" 

to  preach  the  gospel.     Usually,  he  said,  it  was 

the  one  with  a  delicate  constitution,  the  petted 

and  spoiled  child,  of  indolent  habits,  averse  to 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  117 

manly  and  athletic  sports,  who  was  picked  out 
by  the  parents  and  friends  as  the  candidate  for 
"holy  orders."  He  did  not  see  why  such  a  one 
should  be  "divinely  chosen"  and  "set  apart," 
while  the  latent  lawyer,  or  doctor,  or  business 
man,  or  mechanic,  should  be  left  without  a  "call." 
To  him,  the  choice  was  simply  a  very  human 
one  and  often  a  great  mistake.  He  thought  a 
good  workman  at  the  bench  better  than  a  poor 
parson  in  the  pulpit.  "Schoolhouses,"  he  said, 
"are  the  real  temples,  and  teachers  are  the  true 
priests." 

He  knew  only  few,  very  few,  clergymen 
whom  he  could  call  his  friends,  and  instanced 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Dr,  Henry  M.  Field,  and 
the  Rev.  Alexander  Clark  as  among  the  number. 
They  were  fair-minded  and  kindly-spoken,  and 
respected  his  personality  even  if  they  could  not 
accept  his  teachings. 

As  above  stated,  he  knew  how  most  of  those 
in  the  ministerial  "profession"  came  to  be  there 
— ^how  they  were  "ordained"  by  the  "laying  on 
of  hands,"  and  "anointed"  with  "holy  oil,"  the 
"divine  petroleum,"  as  he  termed  it,  of  ecclesias- 
tical ceremony.  One  verified  instance  came  to 
his  knowledge,  that  he  thought  might  well 
enough  illustrate  the  motive  of  many  who  ac- 


118  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

cept  the  call  to  preach.  It  was  that  of  a  young 
man  in  an  Eastern  university,  whose  reputation 
for  honor  and  decency  was  so  tainted  that  he  was 
"black-balled"  when  seeking  entrance  into  the 
Greek  fraternity  of  his  fellow-students.  In  a 
class  meeting  before  graduation  the  boys  were 
invited  to  tell  what  calling  they  intended  to  pur- 
sue in  life.  This  young  man  said:  *'Boys,  I'm 
going  to  be  a  minister!"  They  hooted  him. 
"All  right ;  you  wait  and  see.  Short  cut !  First 
you  get  a  call  to  some  little  country  church. 
Then,  if  you  have  the  gift  of  gab,  you  are  called 
to  the  city,  get  a  big  church,  marry  the  richest 
girl  in  the  congregation,  and  you're  fixed  for 
life !"  He  actually  made  good  this  forecast,  in 
every  particular. 

HIS  EARLY  LIFE  MALIGNED. 

Mr.  Ingersoll's  orthodox  enemies  spread  the 
report  that  his  early  life  was  dissolute  and  de- 
praved. It  was  untrue.  He  was  genial,  jolly, 
good-natured  and  companionable — liked  by  all 
who  knew  him.  Those  competent  to  judge,  who 
knew  him  well  from  boyhood  to  manhood, — 
mayors,  city  and  county  officials,  friends, 
neighbors  and  prominent  citizens — over  their 
own  signatures  attested  by  their  sworn  affida- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  119 

vits,  united  in  indignant  denial  of  the  cheap 
calumny. 

Another  report  industriously  circulated  and 
designed  to  belittle  his  honor  as  a  soldier  and 
his  courage  as  a  man  and  officer,  was  that  he 
tamely  surrendered  his  regiment  of  cavalry  to 
the  confederate  General  Forrest,  and  was  taken 
prisoner  in  a  cowardly  attempt  to  escape.  It 
is  maliciously  false.  His  force  was  surrounded 
by  greatly  superior  numbers,  and  after  a  gaflant 
but  futile  resistance,  like  the  wise  and  humane 
officer  he  was,  he  decided  to  yield  rather  than 
cause  useless  bloodshed.  For  this  act  he  was  to 
be  commended,  not  condemned.  It  is  enough  to 
say  that  in  all  after  years  the  surviving  veter- 
ans of  his  command  loved,  honored  and  almost 
idolized  him. 

Continuing  the  campaign  of  miserable  lies,  a 
newspaper  paragraph  v/idely  circulated,  stated 
that  Mr.  Ingersoll's  daughters  were  "maudlin 
drunkards!"  A  clergyman  from  his  pulpit  re- 
peated the  infamous  story.  When  asked  to  re- 
tract, he  took  refuge,  like  a  moral  coward,  be- 
hind the  newspaper  scrap  and  made  no  manly 
apology.  He  should  have  been  indicted !  Right 
on  the  heels  of  this  unholy  slander,  and  quite 
naturally  following  it,  came  the  statement  in  a 


120  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

religious  journal  that  Mr.  Ingersoll's  daughters 
had  repudiated  their  father's  views  on  religion, 
and  joined  a  Presbyterian  church!  The  truth 
is  that  with  the  exception  that  as  a  compliment 
to  Mr.  Beecher,  whom  their  father  esteemed, 
they  once  went  to  hear  him  preach,  they  never 
entered  the  door  of  an  orthodox  church,  and 
said  that  they  never  wished  to. 


tf 


HIS  "ONLY  SON. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  seldom  took  the  trouble  to  an- 
swer these  stories.  Once  in  a  while  at  the  urg- 
ing of  friends,  he  would  reply  to  an  accusation, 
especially  if  there  was  an  element  of  humor  in 
the  situation.  A  prominent  religious  weekly  pub- 
lished the  following  news  for  the  enlightenment 
of  its  readers :  "We  are  told,  on  good  authority, 
that  Colonel  Ingersoll's  only  son  was  so  addicted 
to  cheap  novel  reading  that  his  mind  became 
affected  thereby;  that  he  was  quietly  removed 
to  a  private  asylum,  where  he  shortly  afterward 
died."  To  an  inquirer  who  sent  him  the  clip- 
ping he  wrote:  "1.  My  only  son  was  not  a  great 
novel  reader;  2.  He  did  not  go  insane ;  3.  He  was 
not  sent  to  an  asylum ;  4.  He  did  not  die;  and  5. 
I  never  had  a  son !" 

"The  truth  is,"  he  said,  "that  arguments  can- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  121 

not  be  answered  by  personal  abuse ;  there  is  no 
logic  in  slander,  and  falsehood,  in  the  long  run, 
defeats  itself." 

"There  was  a  time  when  a  falsehood,  ful- 
minated from  the  pulpit,  smote  like  a  sword; 
but  the  supply  having  greatly  exceeded  the  de- 
mand, clerical  misrepresentation  has  at  last  be- 
come almost  an  innocent  amusement.  Remem- 
bering that  only  a  few  years  ago  men,  women, 
and  even  children,  were  imprisoned,  tortured 
and  burned,  for  having  expressed  in  an  exceed- 
ingly mild  and  gentle  way,  the  ideas  entertained 
by  me,  I  congratulate  myself  that  calumny  is 
now  the  pulpit's  last  resort." 

THE  "OBSCENE  LITERATURE"  CHARGE. 

A  more  serious  and  vital  attack  on  his  moral 
character  came  from  an  influential  clergyman 
in  Brooklyn,  who  from  his  pulpit  made  the  as- 
sertion that  Colonel  Ingersoll  was  in  favor  of 
the  circulation  of  "obscene  literature,  that  cor- 
rupted the  morals  and  debauched  the  minds  of 
the  youth  of  the  land."  He  cited  in  evidence 
the  untrue  report  that  the  Colonel  once  signed 
a  petition  to  Congress  favoring  such  circulation. 
It  was  not  so.  The  preacher  did  not  give  the 
facts.     He  was  not  honest.     If  he  did  not  know 


122  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

the  circumstances  of  the  case,  and  the  intention 
of  the  signers,  he  still  was  culpable,  for  the  facts 
were  all  of  record  and  of  easy  access;  but  the 
preacher  intended  to  leave,  and  did  leave,  the 
impression  that  Mr.  Ingersoll  advocated  the  cir- 
culation through  the  mails  of  impure  and  licen- 
tious  literature.  Of  course,  the  very  thought  of 
such  advocacy  was  foreign  and  abhorrent  to 
him. 

Briefly  stated,  all  there  was  to  the  hateful 
charge  is  this :  When  certain  self-appointed  cen- 
sors— religious  fanatics — presumed  to  decide 
that  liberal  or  infidel  literature  was  "obscene," 
and  on  that  pretext  endeavored  to  have  it  ex- 
cluded, together  with  his  own  writings,  from 
the  United  States  mails,  the  Colonel  denounced 
such  an  attempt  as  an  infringement  on  religious 
liberty.  He  fought  for  the  inviolability  and  free- 
dom of  the  mails  from  pharisaical  intrusion, 
and  challenged  the  moral  or  legal  right  of  Chris- 
tian inquisitors  to  commit  the  Government  to 
an  Act  declaring  Infidel,  or  Agnostic,  or  Atheis- 
tic literature  ''obscene."  If  any  further  word 
were  needed  to  show  Mr.  IngersolFs  attitude  on 
this  question,  listen  to  this  emphatic,  even 
passionate  declaration: 

*'I  despise,  I  execrate,  I  denounce,  with  every 


V 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  123 

drop  of  my  blood,  any  man  or  wofnan  who  would 
engage,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  in  the  dis- 
semination of  anything  that  is  not  absolutely 
pure ;  any  man  or  woman  who  would  stain  with 
lust  the  sweet  and  innocent  heart  of  youth. 
Such  a  one  I  despise  with  all  my  heart.  One 
of  my  objections  to  the  Old  Testament  is  that  it 
is  not  a  fit  book  to  be  read  by  either  old  or 
young.  It  contains  passages  that  no  minister  in 
the  United  States  would  read  to  his  congrega- 
tion for  any  reward  whatever.  There  are  chap- 
ters that  no  gentleman  would  read  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  lady.  There  are  chapters  that  no  fa- 
ther would  read  to  his  child.  There  are  narra- 
tives utterly  unfit  to  be  told;  and  the  time  will 
come  when  mankind  will  wonder  that  such  a 
book  was  ever  called  inspired." 

"I  was  and  am  in  favor  of  the  destruction  of 
every  immoral  book  in  the  world.  I  was  and 
am  in  favor,  not  only  of  the  law  against  the 
circulation  of  such  filth,  but  want  it  executed  to 
the  letter  in  every  State  of  this  Union." 

HIS  FORBEARANCE  AND  SYMPATHY. 

Let  US  now  see  how  this  patient  and  forgiv- 
ing mian  received  and  endured  these  things. 
He  was  generally  silent,  even  under  great  pro- 


124  EGBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

vocation.  His  friends  were  often  indignant  and 
urged  reply  and  retaliation.  He  would  not 
gratify  them.  Only  in  the  slanderous  attack 
upon  his  moral  character  involved  in  the  "ob- 
scene literature"  charge,  did  he  consent  to  take 
legal  action,  which  resulted  in  a  "plea  of 
avoidance"  by  the  clerical  defendant;  and  he 
pursued  the  case  only  far  enough  to  reveal  the 
facts  and  establish  his  unclouded  reputation.  All 
slander  and  abuse  he  endured  with  a  calm  phil- 
osophy. He  always  held  himself  open  to  con- 
viction, and  there  never  was  a  man  readier  to 
acknowledge  an  error,  admit  a  truth,  or  right 
a  wrong.  I  have  known  him  to  do  it  many 
times,  and  to  do  it  gladly,  gracefully,  beauti- 
fully.   , 

He  had  pity  and  forbearance  for  the  weak 
and  erring.  He  was  tender,  compassionate, 
merciful.  He  pleaded  for  the  criminal,  for 
reform  in  the  method  of  treating  him,  and  urged 
before  State  and  National  conventions  the  duty 
of  society  toward  him.  He  did  not  think  that 
all  criminals  were  always  and  only  irretrievably 
bad.  A  convict  whom  he  had  caused  to  be  re- 
leased from  the  Joliet  penitentiary  was  certainly 
not  incorrigible.  The  Colonel  gave  him  a  suit  of 
clothes  and  some  money.     In  a  few  months  a 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  125 

fine-looking  man,  with  the  bearing  of  a  gentle- 
man, came  to  the  Colonel  to  thank  him  again  and 
again,  and  to  return  the  money  which  he  said  he 
had  only  borrowed. 

In  Mr.  Ingersoll's  view,  the  object  of  all  pun- 
ishment should  be  reformation,  not  retaliation — 
rescue,  not  revenge.  Only  such  punishment 
should  be  inflicted  as  the  safety  of  society  de- 
manded. He  was  bitterly  opposed  to  the  whip- 
ping-post,— believed  that  it  degraded  the  whip- 
per  as  well  as  the  whipped,  and  disgraced  the 
State  that  resorted  to  it.  As  for  capital  punish- 
ment, he  regarded  it  as  legal  murder,  pure  and 
simple,  and  believed  that  it  made  more  crim- 
inals than  it  ever  dropped  from  the  scaffold,  or 
seated  in  the  electric  chair.  -^ 

INTELLECTUAL  HOSPITALITY. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  emphasized  the  necessity  of 
free  thought.  Every  man  should  do  his  own 
thinking,  and  he  should  not  be  hindered  or  ham- 
pered in  the  exercise  of  it.  Not  only  had  he  the 
right,  but  it  was  his  duty  as  well  as  privilege, 
to  form  honest  opinions  and  give  honest  expres- 
sion to  them.  He  claimed  this  right  for  himself 
and  accorded  it  to  all  others.  He  persistently 
upheld  the  right  of  private  judgment  as  against 


126  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

all  powers,  sj^stems,  creeds  and  opinions.  Only 
by  its  fearless  exercise,  he  held,  could  the  best 
and  highest  in  man  be  developed.  Claiming  no 
infallibility  for  himself,  he  was  tolerant  of  the 
views  and  opinions  of  others.  He  invited  crit- 
icism and  argument,  loved  debate,  but  was  not 
disputatious  or  offensive — not  excited  or  heated 
in  voice  or  manner,  but  "slow-pulsed  and  calm," 
and  deferential  toward  those  who  differed  with 
him.  It  was,  indeed,  a  treat  to  argue  with  him. 
He  not  only  respected  but  he  admired  the  one 
who  honestly  opposed  him  if  he  could  give  "a 
reason  for  the  f aitii  that  was  in  him." 

HIS  AGNOSTICISM. 

As  before  remarked,  it  is  not  the  purpose  of 
the  writer  to  enter  into  a  discussion  of  Mr. 
Ingersoll's  position  on  religious  and  theological 
questions,  but  simply,  and  in  merest  outline,  to 
attempt  worthily  to  state  it.  He  was  an  Agnos- 
tic, and  wanted  to  be  recognized  as  such.  "I 
do  not  know,"  was  his  reply  to  many  of  the 
great  problems  of  life  and  destiny.  "I  wish  I 
did  know,  but  will  never  pretend,  or  say,  that  I 
do,  when  I  know  that  I  do  not.  I  have  the  same 
sources  of  information  that  others  have, — all 
they  have — and  I  know  that   others   do  not 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  127 

^    know."     "The  clergy  know  that  I  know  that 

v/    they  know  they  do  not  know.'V^. 

This  was  not  said  in  a  facetious  or  boastful 
way,  but  as  expressing  his  sincere  and  earnest 
conviction. 

^  "][do  not  deny.     I  do  not  know — but  I  do  not 

"  "believe."  I  believe  that  the  natural  is  supreme — 
that  from  the  infinite  chain  no  link  can  be  lost 
or  broken — that  there  is  no  supernatural  power 
that  can  answer  prayer — no  power  that  wor- 
ship can  persuade  or  change — no  power  that 
cares  for  man. 

"I  believe  that  with  infinite  arms  Nature 
embraces  them  all — that  there  is  no  interfer- 
ence, no  chance ;  that  behind  every  event  are  the 
necessary  and  countless  causes,  and  that  beyond 
every  event  will  be  and  must  be  the  necessary 
and  countless  effects.  r-f^.^^  m/!^.,.- 

^  "Man  must  protect  himself.     He  cannot  de- 

pend upon  the  supernatural,  upon  an  imaginary 
Father  in  the  skies.  He  must  protect  himself  by 
finding  the  facts  in  Nature,  by  developing  his 
brain,  to  the  end  that  he  may  overcome  the  ob- 
structions and  take  advantage  of  the  forces  of 

^     Nature. 


^y 


128  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

LIBERTY  WITH  RESPONSIBILITY. 

"Thought  and  speech  must  be  free.  The 
man  or  men  who  would  put  a  chain  upon  the 
brain  or  a  padlock  on  the  tongue  are  heirs  of 
the  Inquisition,  the  enemies  of  society,  the  foes 
of  human  progress."  This  liberty  of  thought 
and  speech  did  not  with  him  mean  license.  He 
was  always  careful  to  make  this  distinction  and 
to  emphasize  it.  ''Liberty  with  Responsibility" 
was  his  doctrine.  Men  must  bear  the  conse- 
quences. They  do  bear  them.  We  reap  what 
we  sow.  Act  and  consequence  are  inseparable, 
and  no  power,  human  or  divine,  can  step  between 
to  change  this  law."  ''My  liberty  ends  where 
yours  begins,"  was  his  constant  definition  of  the 
limit  of  freedom. 

ON  A  FUTURE  LIFE. 

■  As  to  a  future  conscious  existence  of  the  indi- 
vidual ego  after  death  he  said:  "I  do  not  know." 
"I  never  have  denied  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  I  have  simply  been  honest.  I  have  said: 
*I  do  not  know.'  " 

"One  thing  I  do  know,  and  that  is,  that  nei- 
ther hope,  nor  fear,  nor  belief,  nor  denial,  can 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  129 

change  the  fact.  It  is  as  it  is,  and  it  will  be  as 
it  must  be. 

"We  wait  and  hope." 

"There  is  in  death,  as  I  believe,  nothing 
worse  than  sleep." 

To  those  who  asked,  "Why,  if  there  be  no  con- 
scious future  state,  should  the  hope  be  so  uni- 
versally implanted  in  the  human  breast?"  he 
replied:  "Love  was  the  first  to  dream  of  immor- 
tality,— not  Religion,  not  Revelation.  We  love, 
therefore  we  wish  to  live." 

"The  hope  of  immortality  is  the  great  oak 
'round  which  have  climbed  the  poisonous  vines 
of  superstition.  The  vines  have  not  supported 
the  oak,  the  oak  has  supported  the  vines.  As 
long  as  men  live  and  love  and  die,  this  hope  will 
blossom  in  the  human  heart." 

He  has  repeatedly  declared :  "I  would  not  de- 
stroy the  faintest  ray  of  human  hope,  but  I  deny 
that  we  get  our  idea  of  immortality  from  the 
Bible.  It  existed  long  before  the  time  of  Moses. 
We  find  it  symbolized  through  all  Egypt, 
through  all  India.  Wherever  man  has  lived  he 
has  made  another  world  in  which  to  meet  the 
lost  of  this. 

"The  history  of  this  belief  we  find  in  tombs 
and  temples  wrought  and  carved  by  those  who 


130  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

wept  and  hoped.  Above  their  dead  they  laid 
the  symbols  of  another  life. 

**We  do  not  know.  We  do  not  prophesy  a  life 
of  pain.  We  leave  the  dead  with  Nature,  the 
mother  of  us  all.  Under  the  bow  of  hope,  under 
the  seven-hued  arch,  let  the  dead  sleep." 

His  attitude  on  this  question  he  has  put  in 
these  rhythmical  lines, — one  of  his  many  prose- 
poems  : 

^We  do  not  know,  we  cannot  say,  whether 
death  is  a  wall  or  a  door;  the  beginning  or  end 
of  a  day;  the  spreading  of  pinions  to  soar,  or 
the  folding  forever  of  wings ;  the  rise  or  the  set 
of  a  sun,  or  an  endless  life  that  brings  rapture 
and  love  to  every  one." 

ON  THE  EXISTENCE  OF  A  GOD. 

^  On  the  existence  of  a  God  he  was  again  an 
Agnostic.  In  one  short  sentence,  every  word  a 
monosyllable,  he  has  stated  a  whole  philosophy 
of  the  subject:  "We  go  as  far  as  we  can,  and  the 
rest  of  the  way  we  say — God."  Could  it  be,  has 
it  ever  been,  put  in  clearer,  shorter,  simpler 
form?  When  we  have  reached  the  limit  of  hu- 
man knowledge,  of  human  thought,  "the  rest  of 
^'  the  way,"  the  Infinite  Beyond,  the  Unknown  and 
Unknowable,  the  Eternal  Mystery,  we  call — 


^ 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  131 

"God."  On  this  vague  and  shadowy  conception 
as  a  foundation,  on  this  human  Guess,  have  been 
built  all  the  creeds  and  systems,  doctrines  and 
dogmas,  of  all  religions  that  have  bound  and 
blinded,  bewildered  and  cursed  the  race.  For 
himself,  when  he  reached  the  limit  of  the  known 
he  stopped,  and  waited  for  further  light,  refus- 
ing to  follow  "blind  guides  leading  the  blind" 
into  the  labyrinths  of  fear  and  superstition,  of 
faith  and  despair. 

Of  one  thing  he  was  sure :  there  could  not  be 
a  God  such  as  the  Bible  describes  and  the  ortho- 
dox worship.  There  could  not  be  a  God  of  the 
Jews  any  more  than  of  the  Gentiles, — of  the 
Egyptians,  the  Hindus,  the  Assyrians,  or  any 
other  of  the  races  of  men.  Vishnu  and  Brah- 
ma, Isis  and  Osiris,  Jupiter  and  Juno, — all  the 
Gods  of  Grecian  and  Roman  mythology  were 
alike  the  creatures  of  human  hopes  and  fears, 
ambitions  and  assumptions,  and  all  equally 
divine  and  worthless.  He  was  careful,  how- 
ever, in  deference  to  those  who  mistook  and  mis- 
stated his  ideas  of  God,  to  make  this  declaration : 
"Let  me  say  once  for  all,  that  when  I  speak  of 
God,  I  mean  the  being  described  by  Moses,  the 
Jehovah  of  the  Jews.  There  rpr^y  be  for  aught  I 
know,   somewhere   in   the   unknown   shoreless 


182  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

vast,  some  being  whose  dreams  are  constella- 
tions and  within  whose  thought  the  infinite  ex- 
ists. About  this  being,  if  such  an  one  exists,  I 
have  nothing  to  say,  for  I  know  nothing." 

There  may  be  a  God,  he  further  held,  but  if 
so,  he  cannot  be,  he  is  not,  the  infinite  fiend  that 
ignorant,  barbarous  and  savage  men  have  cre- 
ated and  worshipped, — a  God  who  made  the 
world,  pronounced  it  "good,"  and  then  permitted 
it  to  become  bad,  so  bad  that  he  had  to  destroy 
it  and  begin  over  again,  repeopling  it,  how- 
ever, with  beings  whom  he  knew  would  be  just  as 
wicked.  He  could  not  conceive  of  a  good  or  just 
God  who  would  order  his  children  to  slay  one 
another;  who  waged  wars  of  conquest  and  ex- 
termination; tolerated  slavery  and  polygamy; 
commanded  religious  persecution;  laughed  at 
the  calamity  of  his  enemies  and  mocked  at  their 
fears;  a  God  who  slaughtered  old  men  and  wo- 
men, young  men  and  maidens,  innocent  babes 
at  their  mothers*  breasts,  and  tortured  even 
dumb  cattle  for  the  sins  of  their  owners ;  who  in 
his  wrath  sent  fire  and  sword,  pestilence  and 
famine,  lightnings  and  tempests,  earthquakes 
and  volcanoes,  snakes  and  vermin,  upon  his 
chosen  people  and  his  enemies,  to  make  them  fear 
and  love  him !    Such  a  conception  of  deity  was 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  133 

to  him  simply  monstrous.  To  his  mind  it  was 
but  the  deification  of  all  the  weaknesses  and 
passions  of  men — their  anger,  jealousy,  cruelty, 
hatred  and  revenge,— a  being  invested  with  in- 
finite power  and  wisdom  to  carry  out  his  will; 
and  to  crown  all,  and  more  infamous  than  all, 
a  God  who  at  the  last  would  punish  any  of  his 
erring  creatures  with  consuming  fire  and  be 
himself  "the  keeper  of  an  eternal  penitentiary!" 
He  labored  all  his  life  and  with  all  his  powers  to 
free  mankind  from  the  thraldom  of  such  a  con- 
ception of  a  Supreme  Being.  He  used  to  say: 
"From  the  aspersions  of  the  pulpit,  from  the 
slanders  of  the  church,  I  seek  to  rescue  the  repu- 
tation of  the  Deity."  "It  has  been  said,  *An 
honest  man  is  the  noblest  work  of  God.'  I  say, 
"An  honest  God  is  the  noblest  work  of  Man!" 

RELIGIONS  DECAY  AND  DIE. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  believed,  from  the  history  of 
all  ages  past,  that  religions,  like  individuals  and 
nations,  have  their  periods  of  youth  and  ma- 
turity, decay  and  death;  and  he  recalls  for  us 
this  history  in  the  eloquent  passage;  from  his 
lecture  on  "The  Gods:" 

"In  that  vast  cemetery  called  the  past,  are 
most  of  the  religions  of  men,  and  there,  too,  are 


134  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

nearly  all  their  gods.  The  sacred  temples  of 
India  were  ruins  long  ago.  Over  column  and 
cornice,  over  the  painted  and  pictured  v^alls, 
cling  and  creep  the  trailing  vines.  Brahma,  the 
golden,  with  four  heads  and  four  arms ;  Vishnu, 
the  somber,  the  punisher  of  the  wicked,  with  his 
three  eyes,  his  crescent,  and  his  necklace  of 
skulls;  Siva,  the  destroyer,  red  with  seas  of 
blood;  Kali,  the  goddess;  Draupadi,  the  white- 
armed,  and  Chrishna,  the  Christ,  all  passed 
away  and  left  the  thrones  of  heaven  desolate. 
Along  the  banks  of  the  sacred  Nile,  Isis  no  longer 
wandering  weeps,  searching  for  the  dead  Osiris. 
The  shadow  of  Typhon's  scowl  falls  no  more 
upon  the  waves.  The  sun  rises  as  of  yore,  and 
his  golden  beams  still  smite  the  lips  of  Memnon, 
but  Memnon  is  as  voiceless  as  the  Sphinx.  The 
sacred  fanes  are  lost  in  desert  sands ;  the  dusty 
mummies  are  still  waiting  for  the  resurrection 
promised  by  their  priests,  and  the  old  beliefs, 
wrought  in  curiously  sculptured  stone,  sleep  in 
the  mystery  of  a  language  lost  and  dead.  Odin, 
the  author  of  life  and  soul,  Vili  and  Ve,  and 
the  mighty  giant  Ymir,  strode  long  ago  from  the 
icy  halls  of  the  North ;  and  Thor,  with  iron  glove 
and  glittering  hammer,  dashes  mountains  to  the 
earth  no  more.    Broken  are  the  circles  and 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  135 

cromlechs  of  the  ancient  Druids ;  fallen  upon  Hie 
summits  of  the  hills,  and  covered  with  the  cen- 
turies' moss,  are  the  sacred  cairns.  The  divine 
fires  of  Persia  and  of  the  Aztecs  have  died  out 
in  the  ashes  of  the  past,  and  there  is  none  to  re- 
kindle, and  none  to  feed  the  holy  flames.  The 
harp  of  Orpheus  is  still;  the  drained  cup  of  Bac- 
chus has  been  thrown  aside ;  Venus  lies  dead  in 
stone,  and  her  white  bosom  heaves  no  more  with 
love.  The  streams  still  murmur,  but  no  naiads 
bathe ;  the  trees  still  wave,  but  in  the  forest  aisles 
no  dryads  dance.  The  gods  have  flown  from 
high  Olympus.  Not  even  the  beautiful  women 
can  lure  them  back,  and  Dan^e  lies  unnoticed, 
naked  to  the  stars.  Hushed  forever  are  the 
thunders  of  Sinai;  lost  are  the  voices  of  the 
prophets,  and  the  land  once  flowing  with  milk 
and  honey,  is  but  a  desert  waste.  One  by  one, 
the  myths  have  faded  from  the  clouds;  one  by 
one,  the  phantom  host  has  disappeared,  and  one 
by  one,  facts,  truths  and  realities  have  taken 
their  places.  The  supernatural  has  almost  gone, 
but  the  natural  remains.  The  gods  have  fled, 
but  man  is  here. 

AS  TO  THE  BIBLE. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add,  that  with  the 


136  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

views  already  expressed,  Mr.  Ingersoll  could  not 
believe  the  Bible  to  be  the  "inspired  word  of 
God."  He  regarded  it  as  simply  a  human  book 
— a  very  human  book, — a  history  more  or  less 
fragmentary  of  the  Jewish  nation  and  people. 
As  such  it  was  the  product  of  the  times  when 
its  different  parts  were  written.  It  reflects, 
naturally,  the  faults  and  follies,  the  weaknesses 
and  errors,  the  customs  and  habits  and  opinions 
of  its  writers  and  of  the  people  for  whom  they 
wrote.  It  contains,  along  with  its  traditions 
and  religious  teachings,  many  wise  and  moral 
maxims  and  exhortations  appealing  to  the 
higher  and  nobler  in  man.  With  all  its  admitted 
beauties  and  excellencies,  however,  there  is  so 
much  that  is  trivial  and  false  and  contradictory 
and  impossible,  that  its  claim  to  divine  inspira- 
tion seems  to  many  to  be  an  absurdity.  To  Mr. 
IngersolFs  mind  all  the  earmarks  show  its 
human  origin.  Its  history  and  chronology,  its 
astronomy  and  geology,  its  science  and  phil- 
osophy, its  biology,  anthropology,  theology  and 
demonology — all  its  "ologies" — are  ignorant, 
crude  and  impossible.  Its  myths  and  miracles, 
childish  traditions  and  superstitions,  its  immoral 
and  anti-natural  precepts  and  examples,  show 
absolutely  its  purely  human  origin.     He  thought 


AN  INTIIvIATE  VIEW  137 

and  said  that,  in  his  judgment,  Adam  was  not  a 
perfect  gentleman,  according  to  the  nineteenth 
century  standard;  and  that  Moses  and  Aaron; 
Joshua  and  Jephtha ;  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob; 
David  and  Saul  and  Solomon;  Jonah,  Samson, 
Jeremiah  and  Elisha,  with  other  "worthies'*  of 
the  Old  Testament,  were  "a  sorry  lot,'*  most  of 
whom,  if  living  to-day,  would  probably  be  in  the 
penitentiary. 

Besides,  he  said,  there  are  many  bibles  and 
bibles,  as  there  are  many  religions, — sacred 
scriptures  of  other  races  and  peoples — some  of 
them  of  a  civilization  superior  to  and  an  antiq- 
uity greater  than  the  Jewish ;  to  say  nothing  of 
the  many  differing  manuscripts  and  transla- 
tions,— "books"  lost  that  have  not  been  found, 
"books"  left  in  that  should  have  been  left  out, 
and  that  were  admitted  or  excluded  into  or  from 
the  "sacred  canon"  by  the  "votes"  of  human 
councils,  often  by  narrow  majorities  and  after 
heated  and  angry  discussions — together  with 
the  many  interpolations,  anachronisms  and  con- 
tradictions that  mark  these  sacred  books, — all 
these  testify  to  their  very  natural  earthly 
origin. 


138  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

MY  BIBLE. 

"For  thousands  of  years  men  have  been  writ- 
ing the  real  Bible,  and  it  is  being  written  from 
day  to  day,  and  it  will  never  be  finished  while 
man  has  life.  All  the  facts  that  we  know,  all 
the  truly  recorded  events,  all  the  discoveries  and 
inventions,  all  the  wonderful  machines  whose 
wheels  and  levers  seem  to  think,  all  the  poems, 
crystals  from  the  brain,  flowers  from  the  heart, 
all  the  songs  of  love  and  joy,  of  smiles  and  tears, 
the  great  dramas  of  Imagination's  world,  the 
wondrous  paintings,  miracles  of  form  and  color, 
of  light  and  shade,  the  marvellous  marbles  that 
seem  to  live  and  breathe,  the  secrets  told  by  rock 
and  star,  by  dust  and  flower,  by  rain  and  snow, 
by  frost  and  flame,  by  winding  stream  and  des- 
ert sand,  by  mountain  range  and  billowed  sea. 

"All  the  wisdom  that  lengthens  and  ennobles 
life — all  that  avoids  or  cures  disease,  or  conquers 
pain — all  just  and  perfect  laws  and  rules  that 
guide  and  shape  our  lives,  all  thoughts  that  feed 
the  flames  of  love,  the  music  that  transfigures, 
enraptures  and  enthralls,  the  victories  of  heart 
and  brain,  the  miracles  that  hands  have 
wrought,  the  deft  and  cunning  hands  of  those 
who  worked  for  wife  and  child,  the  histories  of 
noble  deeds,  of  brave  and  useful  men,  of  faith- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  139 

ful  loving  wives,  of  quenchless  mother-love,  of 
conflicts  for  the  right,  of  sufferings  for  the  truth, 
of  all  the  best  that  all  the  men  and  women  of  the 
world  have  said,  and  thought  and  done  through 
all  the  years, — these  treasures  of  the  heart  and 
brain — these  are  the  Sacred  Scriptures  of  the 
human  race." 


140  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

VIII. 
ON  ETERNAL  PUNISHMENT. 

We  come  now  to  a  statement,  feebly  inade- 
quate, of  Mr.  Ingersoll's  position  on  this  ques- 
tion. It  was  to  him  the  culminating  point  of 
all  his  objectives.  It  mattered  little  to  him,  com- 
paratively, what  people  believed  on  abstruse  and 
disputed  questions  of  theology,  science,  or  phil- 
osophy. But  on  the  vital  question  of  the  des- 
tiny of  the  human  soul  he  stood  firm  as  a  rock. 
Here  he  would  admit  no  compromise,  make  no 
concession.  In  this,  he  was  no  longer  an  Agnos- 
tic,— he  knew.  Everlasting  punishment  of  the 
"unrepenting  sinner,"  of  the  "wicked,"  of  any- 
body, was  to  his  mind  and  heart  an  unspeakable 
horror — a  frightful  insanity.  This  doctrine  it 
was  that  first  opened  his  eyes  to  the  falseness  of 
Christian  theology,  and  separated  him  forever 
from  all  confidence  in,  and  sympathy  with  its 
teachings,  and  made  him  one  of  its  most  im- 
placable foes.  This  dogma  he  despised  and 
execrated.  He  denounced  it  as  a  "doctrine,  the 
infamy  of  which  no  language  is  sufficient  to 
express." 

He  said  that,  "While  the  Old  Testament 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  141 

threatens  men,  women  and  children  with  disease, 
famine,  war,  pestilence  and  death,  there  are  no 
threatenings  of  punishment  beyond  this  life. 
The  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment  is  a  dogma 
of  the  New  Testament.  This  doctrine,  the  most 
cruel,  the  most  infamous,  is  taught,  if  taught  at 
all,  in  the  Bible — in  the  New  Testament.  One 
cannot  imagine  what  the  human  heart  has  suf- 
fered by  reason  of  the  frightful  doctrine  of  eter- 
nal damnation.  It  is  a  doctrine  so  abhorrent  to 
every  drop  of  my  blood,  so  infinitely  cruel,  that 
it  is  impossible  for  me  to  respect  either  the  head 
or  heart  of  any  huiman  being  who  teaches  or 
fears  it.  This  doctrine  necessarily  subverts  all 
ideas  of  justice.  To  inflict  infinite  punishment 
for  finite  crimes,  or  rather  for  crimes  com- 
mitted by  finite  beings,  is  a  proposition  so  mon- 
strous that  I  am  astonished  it  ever  found  lodg- 
ment in  the  brain  of  man.  Whoever  says  that 
we  can  be  happy  in  heaven  while  those  we  loved 
on  earth  are  suffering  infinite  torments  in  eter- 
nal fire,  defames  and  calumniates  the  human 
heart." 

And  who  can  doubt  that  among  the  foremost 
factors  in  chasing  this  black  shadow  from  the 
earth  has  been  the  gentle,  loving,  brave  and 
fearless  Ingersoll. 


142  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

TRUE  CONSOLATION. 

His  teachings  were  a  consolation  to  many  a 
sorrowing  heart.  Many  a  heavy  burden  has  by 
them  been  lifted  from  timid  and  troubled  souls. 
In  San  Francisco,  his  cousin  Mrs.  Sarah  B. 
Cooper,  the  philanthropist,  brought  to  his  atten- 
tion the  case  of  a  devoutly  pious  friend,  a  widow, 
whose  only  boy  had  been  suddenly  taken  from 
her  side.  He  was  a  good  and  loving  son,  the 
idol  of  her  heart,  the  pride  and  prop  of  her  life, 
but  he  was  not  a  Christian,  and  she  feared  for 
his  eternal  fate, — felt  that  heaven  would  be  no 
heaven  to  her  without  her  boy.  Her  grief  was 
inconsolable.  The  "consolations"  of  the  gos- 
pel failed  to  satisfy  her  heart,  or  dispel  her  fears. 
The  visits  of  her  pastor  brought  no  comfort,  left 
behind  no  peace.  Christian  friends  came  in 
vain  to  her  relief.  Appealed  to  by  his  cousin, 
Colonel  Ingersoll  wrote  a  letter  to  this  sorrow- 
ing heart.     He  urged  her  not  to  fear,  saying : 

"Mrs.  Cooper  has  told  me  the  sad  story  of 
your  almost  infinite  sorrow.  I  am  not  foolish 
enough  to  suppose  that  I  can  say  or  do  anything 
to  lessen  your  great  grief,  your  anguish  for  his 
loss;  but  may  be  I  can  say  something  to  drive 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  143 

from  your  poor  heart  the  fiend  of  fear — fear  for 
him. 

"If  there  is  a  God,  let  us  believe  that  he  is 
good,  and  if  he  is  good,  the  good  have  nothing  to 
fear.  I  have  been  told  that  your  son  was  kind 
and  generous;  that  he  was  filled  with  charity 
and  sympathy.  Now,  we  know  that  in  this 
v/orld  like  begets  like,  kindness  produces  kind- 
ness, and  all  goodness  bears  the  fruit  of  joy. 
Belief  is  nothing — deeds  are  everything;  and  if 
your  son  was  kind  he  will  naturally  find  kind- 
ness wherever  he  may  be.  You  would  not  inflict 
endless  pain  upon  your  worst  enemy.  Is  God 
less  merciful  than  you?  You  could  not  bear  to 
see  a  viper  suffer  forever.  Is  it  possible  that 
God  will  doom  a  kind  and  generous  boy  to  ever- 
lasting pain?  Nothing  can  be  more  monstrously 
absurd  and  cruel. 

"The  truth  is,  that  no  human  being  know^s 
anything  of  what  is  beyond  the  grave.  If 
nothing  is  known,  then  it  is  not  honest  for  any- 
one to  pretend  that  he  does  know.  If  nothing 
is  known,  then  we  can  hope  only  for  the  good. 
If  there  be  a  God  your  boy  is  no  more  in  his 
power  now  than  he  was  before  his  death — no 
more  than  you  are  at  the  present  moment.  Why 
should  we  fear  God  more  after  death  than  be- 


144  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

fore?  Does  the  feeling  of  God  toward  his  child- 
ren change  the  moment  they  die?  While  we  are 
alive  they  say  God  loves  us;  when  will  he  cease 
to  love  us?  True  love  never  changes.  I  beg 
of  you  to  throw  aw^ay  all  fear.  Take  counsel 
of  your  own  heart.  If  God  exists,  your  heart  is 
the  best  revelation  of  him,  and  your  heart  could 
never  send  your  boy  to  endless  pain.  After  all, 
no  one  knows.  The  ministers  know  nothing. 
All  the  churches  in  the  world  know  no  more 
on  this  subject  than  the  ants  on  the  ant-hills. 
Creeds  are  good  for  nothing  except  to  break  the 
hearts  of  the  loving.  Have  courage.  Under  the 
seven-hued  arch  of  hope  let  your  boy  sleep.  I  do 
not  pretend  to  know,  but  I  do  know  that  others 
do  not  know.  Listen  to  your  heart,  believe 
what  it  says,  and  wait  with  patience  and  with- 
out fear  for  what  the  future  has  for  all.  If  we 
can  get  no  comfort  from  what  people  know,  let 
us  avoid  being  driven  to  despair  by  what  they 
do  not  know. 

"I  wish  I  could  say  something  that  would  put 
a  star  in  your  night  of  grief — a  little  flower  in 
your  lonely  path — and  if  an  unbeliever  has  such 
a  wish,  surely  an  infinitely  good  being  never 
made  a  soul  to  be  the  food  of  pain  through  count- 
less years.'* 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  145 

To  this  letter  came  the  prompt  reply: 
"Dear  Colonel  Ingersoll :  I  found  your  let- 
ter inclosed  with  one  from  Mrs.  Cooper  at  my 
door  on  the  way  to  this  hotel  to  see  a  friend. 
I  broke  the  seal  here,  and  through  blinding  tears 
— letting  it  fall  from  my  hands  between  each 
sentence  to  sob  my  heart  out — read  it.  The 
first  peace  I  have  known,  real  peace,  since  the 
terrible  blow,  has  come  to  me  now.  While  I 
will  not  doubt  the  existence  of  a  God,  I  feel  that 
I  can  rest  my  grief -stricken  heart  on  his  good- 
ness and  mercy;  and  you  have  helped  me  to  do 
this.  Why,  you  have  helped  me  to  believe  in  an 
all-merciful  and  loving  creator,  who  has  gath- 
ered (I  will  try  to  believe)  my  poor  little  boy — 
my  kind,  large-hearted  child — into  his  tender 
and  sheltering  arms.  There  is  a  genuine  ring 
in  your  words  that  lifts  me  up. 

"Your  belief,  so  clear  and  logical,  so  filled 
with  common  sense,  corresponds,  so  far  back  as 
I  can  remember,  with  my  own  matter-of-fact 
ideas ;  and  I  was  the  child  of  good  and  praying 
parents,  and  my  great  wondering  eyes,  ques- 
tioning silently  when  they  talked  to  me,  my 
strange  ways,  while  I  tried  to  be  good,  caused 
them  often  great  anxiety  and  many  a  pang — 
God  forgive  me. 


146  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

"I  am  writing,  while  people  are  talking 
about  me,  just  a  line  to  thank  you  from  the  bot- 
tom of  my  heart  for  the  comfort  you  have  given 
me  to-day.  You  great,  good  man;  I  see  the 
traces  of  your  tears  all  over  your  letter,  and  I 
could  clasp  your  hand  and  bless  you  for  this  com- 
fort you  have  given  my  poor  heart." 

ON  SPECIAL  PROVIDENCE. 

Colonel  Ingersoll  did  not  believe  in  a  special 
Providence  caring  for  each  human  soul,  answer- 
ing prayer  and  extending  his  almighty  arm  in 
rescue  of  the  innocent  and  helpless  and  in  re- 
ward of  the  faithful  and  righteous;  nor  did  he 
believe  that  this  Providence  ever  heard  or 
answered  the  most  horrible  prayer  ever  offer- 
ed by  human  lips  or  written  by  human  hand — 
David's  109th  imprecatory  Psalm. 

A  minister  called  on  him  once  to  say:  "Col- 
onel, I  understand  you  do  not  believe  in  a  special 
providence."  "I  do  not."  "Well,  I  want  to 
prove  it  to  you  beyond  all  question,  in  my  own 
case.  Some  years  ago  I  engaged  passage  on  a 
steamer,  to  go  abroad.  Before  she  sailed,  I  had 
a  fear,  a  presentiment,  or  feeling — call  it  what 
you  will — that  something  would  happen  to  that 
steamer.    I  got  so  worked  up  over  it,  that  I  took 


I 
AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  147 

it  to  the  Lord  in  earnest  prayer.  As  the  result, 
I  gave  up  my  stateroom.  Colonel,  that  steamer 
never  reached  port.  She  went  down,  and  every 
one  of  the  four  hundred  souls  on  board  sank  to 
a  watery  grave.  Will  you  tell  me  that  that  was 
not  a  divine  interposition  in  my  behalf,  in  an- 
swer to  my  prayer  ?  Is  it  not  proof  positive  that 
God  cared  for  me  in  a  special,  personal  way?" 
"But,  my  dear  sir,"  was  the  Colonel's  reply, 
"what  do  you  suppose  the  families  and  friends 
of  the  four  hundred  drowned  thought  of  your 
special  providence  ?  Do  you  think  that  God  cared 
only  for  your  one  little  soul  and  forgot  to  warn 
all  the  rest?  It  won't  do.  Besides,  do  you  feel 
comfortable  at  the  thought  that  having  such  a 
warning  from  the  Lord  you  did  not,  day  and 
night,  beseech  the  captain  of  that  ship  to  post- 
pone his  sailing,  at  least  till  you  could  get  word 
from  heaven  that  it  was  safe  to  go?"  The  min- 
ister did  not  reply.  "Now,  let  me  tell  you  my 
case,"  continued  the  Colonel.  "Providence  cared 
for  me  a  little  while  ago  in  a  striking  way, 
though  you  may  not  believe  it.  A  thxmder-bolt 
struck  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association's 
building  which  adjoined  my  own  oiRce  in  Wash- 
ington, and  I  escaped !     !f  that  shaft  was  aimed 


148  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

at  me,  I  certainly  think  your  providence  was  a 
very  poor  marksman !" 

ON  MIRACLES. 

When  the  subject  of  miracles  was  broached, 
he  could  hardly  repress  a  smile, — the  belief  in 
them  seemed  to  him  so  hopelessly  unworthy  of 
an  intelligent,  thinking  mind.  He  could  find 
no  warrant  in  Nature,  or  experience,  for  such 
a  belief.  He  held  that  the  belief  had  its  founda- 
tion in  the  ignorance,  credulity  and  fear  of  the 
superstitious  savage.  That  these  lowest  ele- 
ments in  man  should  be  played  upon  by  design- 
ing priests  to  extort  reverence  for  their  persons 
and  their  office  and  obedience  to  their  authority, 
— to  say  nothing  of  the  revenue  extracted  from 
the  poor  and  toiling  millions, — seemed  to  him  a 
monstrous  crime.  He  could  not  argue  the  ques- 
tion seriously,  it  was  to  him  altogether  outside 
the  pale  of  rational  thought.  Belief  in  miracles 
has  always  been  the  mother  of  superstition,  and 
he  held  the  church  responsible  for  upholding  and 
perpetuating  it. 

''Believers  in  miracles,"  he  said,  "should  not 
endeavor  to  explain  them.  There  is  but 
one  way  to  explain  anything,  and  that  is  to 
account  for  it  by  natural  agencies.     The  moment 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  149 

you  explain  a  miracle,  it  disappears.  You 
should  depend  not  upon  explanation,  but  upon 
assertion.  You  should  not  be  driven  from  the 
field  because  the  miracle  is  shown  to  be  unrea- 
sonable. You  should  reply  that  all  miracles  are 
unreasonable.  Neither  should  you  be  in  the 
least  disheartened  if  it  be  shown  to  be  impossible. 
The  possible  is  not  miraculous.  You  should  take 
the  ground  that  if  miracles  were  reasonable,  and 
possible,  there  would  be  no  reward  paid  for  be- 
lieving them.  The  Christian  has  the  goodness 
to  believe,  while  the  sinner  asks  for  evidence.  It 
is  enough  for  God  to  work  miracles,  without 
being  called  upon  to  substantiate  them  for  the 
benefit  of  unbelievers." 

The  efforts  of  otherwise  intelligent  men,  the 
so-called  or  miscalled  Christian  scientists,  to 
reconcile  the  miracles  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments with  the  facts  and  laws  of  Nature  were  to 
Mr.  Ingersoll  simply  amusing.  "We  must  re- 
member," he  said,  "that  the  priests  of  one  re- 
ligion never  credit  the  miracles  of  another  re- 
ligion. Is  this  because  priests  instinctively 
know  priests?  Now,  when  a  Christian  tells  a 
Buddhist  some  of  the  miracles  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments,  the  Buddhist  smiles.  When  the 
Buddhist  tells  a  Christian  the  miracles  per- 


150  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

formed  by  the  Buddha,  the  Christian  laughs." 
Continuing,  he  said  in  substance:  the  truth 
is,  that  in  common  belief  we  call  that  "miracu- 
lous" which  is  simply  mysterious  or  wonderful. 
We  speak  of  the  "miracle"  of  sand  and  star,  of 
life  and  growth,  of  decay  and  death,  but  they 
are  only  the  immutable  and  uniform  operations 
of  the  laws  of  Nature.  To  suspend  these  laws, 
even  for  a  moment,  would  result  in  confusion, 
wreck  and  universal  doom.  According  to  the 
account,  General  Joshua  commanded  that  "the 
sun  and  moon  stop  in  the  heavens  in  order  that 
General  Joshua  might  have  more  time  to  mur- 
der ;  the  shadow  on  a  dial  goes  back  ten  degrees 
to  convince  a  petty  king  of  a  barbarous  people 
that  he  is  not  going  to  die  of  a  boil."  We  now 
know  that  if  these  "miracles"  had  been  wrought, 
the  world  would  have  been  instantly  plunged  in- 
to the  night  of  chaos  and  ruin.  Nature's  laws 
are  uniform  and  inexorably  persistent  in  their 
operation.  They  obey  no  master,  suffer  no  in- 
terference. Like  causes  always  and  every- 
where produce  like  effects,  and  no  mandate  from 
earth  or  sky,  no  "miracle,"  however  attested,  can 
change  this  law. 

Miracles  are  simply  the  product  of  the  un- 
enlightened human  imagination,  stimulated  and 


AN  INTn^iATE  VIEW  151 

pei%^erted  by  the  mistaken  zeal  of  sincerity,  or 
by  the  designing  craft  of  religious  hypocrisy  or 
fanaticism.    No  miracles  are  wrought  to-day. 

On  the  Sunday  question  he  was  equally  em- 
phatic. He  did  not  believe  that  that  day,  or  any 
day,  could  be  "holy"  or  "sacred"  in  the  theologi- 
cal sense.  That  day  was  holy  to  him  in  which 
some  kind  thought  was  expressed,  or  loving  deed 
done  for  others.  "How,"  he  asked,  "can 
a  space  of  time  be  holy?  You  might  as  well 
talk  of  a  pious  multiplication  table,  a  moral  tri- 
angle, or  a  virtuous  vacuum."  He  regarded 
the  day  as  a  good  civil  institution,  as  a  day  of 
rest  from  unnecessary  toil,  and  if  sacred  for 
anything,  to  be  devoted  to  individual,  family 
and  social  joys. 

His  views  on  slavery  and  polygamy;  on  in- 
'  spiration,  the  trinity,  the  divinity  of  Christ, — 
.  whom  he  regarded  as  a  good,  kind  and  gentle 
man,  a  reformer  and  an  infidel  in  his  day;  on 
the  incarnation;  on  the  fall  of  man,  the  atone- 
ment, the  resurrection  of  the  body  and  other 
doctrines  of  orthodox  Christianity,  are  too  gen- 
erally known  to  need  rehearsal  here.  He  reject- 
ed them  all,  and  in  his  works  has  given  mani- 
fold reasons  therefor. 


152  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

ON  NATURE  AND  MAN. 

He  believed  that  Nature,  or  the  Universe,  is 
all  there  is ;  that  it  is  the  only  God.  In  this  he 
was  pantheistic,  yet  not  professedly  a  Pantheist. 
nor  was  he  a  Deist.    He  said : 

"Let  us  be  honest  with  ourselves.  In  the 
presence  of  countless  mysteries;  standing  be- 
neath the  boundless  heaven  sown  thick  with  con- 
stellations; knowing  that  each  grain  of  sand, 
each  leaf,  each  blade  of  grass,  asks  of  every 
mind  the  answerless  question ;  knowing  that  the 
simplest  thing  defies  solution;  feeling  that  we 
deal  with  the  superficial  and  the  relative,  and 
that  we  are  forever  eluded  by  the  real,  the 
absolute, — let  us  admit  the  limitations  of  our 
minds,  and  let  us  have  the  courage  and  the  can- 
dor to  say :  We  do  not  know." 

"The  Agnostic  is  an  Atheist.  The  Atheist 
is  an  Agnostic.  The  Agnostic  says:  "I  do  not 
know,  but  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any  God." 
The  Atheist  says  the  same.  The  orthodox 
Christian  says  he  knows  there  is  a  God;  but  we 
know  that  he  does  not  know.  He  simply  be- 
lieves. He  cannot  know.  The  Atheist  cannot 
know  that  God  does  not  exist." 
t.  As  we  have  seen,  he  was  an  Agnostic, — ^he  did 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  153 

not  know,  nor  pretend,nor  profess  to  know.  He 
did  not  personify  Nature  as  God.  Nature  to 
him  had  no  moral  qualities  or  attributes, — nei- 
ther loved  nor  hated ;  held  no  sceptre  like  a  king 
dispensing  favors  and  rewards,  no  power  like  a 
judge  inflicting  penalties  and  pains.  He  be- 
lieved that  man  himself  is  king  and  judge,  vic- 
tor and  victim,  his  own  master,  his  own  slave, 
that  he  reaps  what  he  sows,  gathers  his  own 
harvest. 

He  held  that  Nature  or  the  elements,  the 
Universe  or  God  cannot  be  the  person,  with 
"body,  parts  and  passions,"  that  man  in  his 
ignorance  and  faith  has  created.  Man  in  his 
vain  search  for  the  Infinite  has  simply  personi- 
fied the  forces  of  Nature  and  given  to  them  quali- 
ties and  attributes  in  accord  with  his  own  high- 
est and  lowest  conceptions.  Nature,  according 
to  Mr.  Ingersoll,  has  no  mental,  moral,  or  physi- 
cal embodiment  of  a  human  type — is  not  an 
exaggerated  and  sublimated  man,  to  be  feared 
and  worshipped.  It  has  no  appetites,  no  wants, 
and  cannot  therefore  be  entreated  by  prayer, 
flattered  by  praise,  melted  by  tears,  or  bribed  by 
offerings  and  sacrifices.  He  believed  that  noth- 
ing we  know  can  be  higher  or  lower  than  the 
natural — can  be  either  supernatural  or  infra- 


154  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

natural, — that  there  are  no  gods,  no  angels,  no 
devils,  no  heavens,  no  hells.  "The  Universe  is 
all  there  is,  or  was,  or  v^ill  be.  It  is  both  sub- 
ject and  object;  contemplator  and  contemplated; 
creator  and  created;  destroyer  and  destroyed; 
preserver  and  preserved,  and  hath  within  itself 
all  causes,  modes,  motions,  and  effects." 

He  taught  that  man  only  could  be  the  provi- 
dence of  man ;  that  if  man  is  to  be  helped,  man 
must  be  the  helper;  that  he  will  look  in  vain  to 
the  mountains  or  the  clouds, — that  he  himself 
must  be  and  make  his  own  heaven,  as  he  sadly 
enough  makes  his  own  hell.  Summing  up  his 
philosophy  of  human  life  he  said:  "Happiness 
is  the  only  good.  The  place  to  be  happy  is  here. 
The  time  to  be  happy  is  now.  The  way  to  be 
happy  is  to  make  others  so." 

"ICONOCLASM." 

Many,  by  way  of  reproach,  called  him  a 
"rude  Iconoclast,"  shattering  the  images  wor- 
shipped by  devout  souls  and  setting  up  no  others 
in  their  places.  They  cried,  "You  take  away 
our  'idols,'  as  you  call  them,  and  give  us  nothing 
in  return."    To  these  he  would  say: 

"We  do  not  want  creeds;  we  do  not  want 
idols ;  we  want  knowledge ;  we  want  happiness. 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  155 

"And  yet  we  are  told  by  the  Church  that  we 
have  accomplished  nothing;  that  we  are  simply 
destroyers ;  that  we  tear  down  without  building 
again. 

"Is  it  nothing  to  free  the  mind?  Is  it  noth- 
ing to  civilize  mankind?  Is  it  nothing  to  fill 
the  world  with  light,  with  discovery,  with  sci- 
ence? Is  it  nothing  to  dignify  man  and  exalt 
the  intellect?  Is  it  nothing  to  grope  your  way 
into  the  di-eary  prisons,  the  damp  and  dripping 
dungeons,  the  dark  and  silent  cells  of  super- 
stition, where  the  souls  of  men  are  chained  to 
floors  of  stone ;  to  greet  them  like  a  ray  of  light, 
like  the  song  of  a  bird,  the  murmur  of  a  stream ; 
to  see  the  dull  eyes  open  and  grow  slowly  bright ; 
to  feel  yourself  grasped  by  the  shrunken  and 
unused  hands,  and  hear  yourself  thanked  by  a 
strange  and  hollow  voice? 

"Is  it  nothing  to  conduct  these  souls  gradu- 
ally into  the  blessed  light  of  day — to  let  them 
see  again  the  happy  fields,  the  sweet,  green 
earth,  and  hear  the  everlasting  music  of  the 
waves?  Is  it  nothing  to  make  men  wipe  the 
dust  from  their  swollen  knees,  the  tears  from 
their  blanched  and  furrowed  cheeks?  Is  it  a 
small  thing  to  reave  the  heavens  of  an  insatiate 
monster  and  wTite  upon  the  eternal  dome,  glit- 


156  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

tering  with  stars,  the  grand  word — Freedom? 

*'Is  it  a  small  thing  to  quench  the  flames  of 
hell  with  the  holy  tears  of  pity — to  unbind  the 
martyr  from  the  stake — break  all  the  chains — 
put  out  the  fires  of  civil  war — stay  the  sword 
of  the  fanatic,  and  tear  the  bloody  hands  of  the 
Church  from  the  white  throat  of  Science? 

"Is  it  a  small  thing  to  make  men  truly  free 
— ^to  destroy  the  dogmas  of  ignorance,  prejudice 
and  power — the  poisoned  fables  of  superstition, 
and  drive  from  the  beautiful  face  of  the  earth 
the  fiend  of  Fear?" 

Do  not  be  frightened,  he  urged ;  "Fear  is  the 
dungeon  of  the  soul."  "Do  not  be  afraid  to 
doubt ;  your  doubts  are  the  smartest  things  about 
you." 

"The  destroyer  of  weeds  and  thistles  is  a 
benefactor,  whether  he  soweth  grain  or  not. 
I  cannot,  for  my  life,  see  why  one  should  be 
charged  with  tearing  down  and  not  rebuilding, 
simply  because  he  exposes  a  sham,  or  detects 
a  lie.  I  do  not  feel  under  any  obligation  to  build 
something  in  the  place  of  a  detected  falsehood. 
All  I  think  I  am  under  obligation  to  put  in  the 
place  of  a  detected  lie,  is  the  detection." 

"I  have  not  torn  the  good  dowTi.  I  have  only 
endeavored  to  trample  out  the  ignorant,  cruel 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  157 

ifires  of  hell.  I  do  not  tear  away  the  passage: 
'God  will  be  merciful  to  the  merciful/  I  do  not 
destroy  the  promise :  'If  you  will  forgive  others, 
God  will  forgive  you.' 

"There  is  no  darkness  but  ignorance,  no  light 
but  intelligence,"  he  asserted  over  and  over 
again.  "On  the  ruins  of  ignorance  the  splendid 
temple  of  intelligence  must  be  reared.  In  the 
place  of  darkness  the  light  must  be  made  to 
shine." 

"Some  may  ask,  'Are  you  trying  to  take  our 
religion  away?' 

"To  such  I  answer.  No.     Superstition  is  not 
religion. 

"To  love  justice,  to  long  for  the  right,  to  love 
mercy,  to  pity  the  suffering,  to  assist  the  weak, 
to  forget  wrongs  and  remember  benefits — to 
love  the  truth,  to  be  sincere,  to  utter  honest 
words,  to  love  liberty,  to  wage  relentless  war 
against  slavery  in  all  its  forms,  to  love  wife  and 
child  and  friend,  to  make  a  happy  home,  to  love 
the  beautiful  in  art,  in  nature,  to  cultivate  the 
mind,  to  be  familiar  with  the  mighty  thoughts 
that  genius  has  expressed,  the  noble  deeds  of  all 
the  world,  to  cultivate  courage  and  cheerfulness, 
to  make  others  happy,  to  fill  life  with  the  splen- 
dor of  generous  acts,  the  warmth  of  loving 


158  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

words,  to  discard  error,  to  destroy  prejudice,  to 
receive  new  truths  with  gladness,  to  cultivate 
hope,  to  see  the  calm  beyond  the  storm,  the  dawn 
beyond  the  night,  to  do  the  best  that  can  be  done 
and  then  to  be  resigned — this  is  the  religion  of 
reason,  the  creed  of  science.  This  satisfies  the 
brain  and  heart." 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  159 

IX. 

HIS  VIEW  OF  CHRIST. 

What  did  Mr.  Ingersoll  think  of  Christ? 
That  he  was  simply  a  man, — not  "God  incar- 
nate," as  theologians  express  it.  He  was  not, 
could  not  have  been,  miraculously  conceived. 
He  was  the  son,  the  first-born,  of  Jewish  par- 
ents, naturally  begotten.  He  learned  and  fol- 
lowed his  father's  trade  and  lived  in  the  home 
with  the  rest  of  the  family.  We  know  nothing 
of  his  boyhood  aside  from  apocryphal  tales  told 
of  wonders  he  wrought  for  the  amusement  and 
amazement  of  his  playmates,  and  the  gospel 
story  of  confounding  the  doctors  in  the  temple 
by  his  precocious  wisdom.  His  mother,  as  a 
woman,  and  the  wife  of  Joseph,  must  have  be- 
lieved in  her  heart  that  Christ  was  the  child  of 
their  union,  and  not  the  offspring  of  Jehovah. 
Once  when  they  feared  their  boy  was  lost,  she 
said  on  finding  him,  "Thy  father  and  I" — thy 
parents — "have  sought  thee,  sorrowing." 

The  writer  of  Matthew's  gospel  believed, 
with  other  Jews,  that  the  Christ  of  prophesy  and 
of  their  hopes  was  to  be  an  earthly  king,  who 
should  "sit  on  the  throne  of  his  father  David." 


160  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

He  therefore  traces  the  ancestry  of  Joseph,  "as 
was  supposed,"  not  of  Mary,  to  show  that  the 
blood  of  David  was  in  Joseph's  veins.  Christ 
was  a  human  being — could  have  been  none 
other.  The  claim  of  divinity  was  not  made  for 
him  by  the  early  Church  until  years  after  his 
death,  for  the  epistles  and  gospels  were  not 
known  or  accepted  as  authority  until  at  least  a 
century-and-a-half  later. 

In  his  review  of  the  four  gospels,  Mr.  Inger- 
soll  shows  that  there  was  not  agreement.  This 
want  of  harmony  was  apparent,  more  perhaps 
in  the  omission  of  important  events  and  doc- 
trines than  in  the  interpolations  and  errors  of 
translation.  He  points  out  especially  that  the 
most  vital  message  of  all,  the  Atonement,  is  not 
definitely  set  forth  by  either  of  the  three  evan- 
gelists. Only  John  tells  us  that  we  must  "be- 
lieve" and  be  "born  again"  in  order  to  be  saved. 
The  other  three  had  not  heard  of  it,  or  did  not 
regard  salvation  by  faith  as  an  essential  teach- 
ing of  their  Master,  else  they  would,  all  of  them, 
have  said  so.  Instead,  they  exalted  and  empha- 
sized the  moral  precepts,  the  practice  of  good- 
ness, mercy,  purity  of  heart,  forgiveness,  char- 
ity— the  doctrines  preached  by  Christ  in  his 
"Sermon  on  the  Mount."     This  sermon  was  to 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  161 

be  for  his  hearers  their  guide  and  chart  through 
life  and  the  key  to  open  for  them  the  portals  of 
heaven. 

Of  course  he  discarded  all  miracles,  myths, 
legends  and  false  records  of  the  words  said  to 
have  been  spoken  and  deeds  said  to  have  been 
done  by  Christ.  He  regarded  these  as  the  source 
and  cause  of  the  beliefs  of  his  misguided  and  de- 
luded, even  though  sincere  and  devout,  followers. 
He  could  understand  and  account  for  their 
credulity,  and  their  reverential  homage,  and  did 
not  wonder  at  it.  Did  not  they  see  this  kins- 
man of  theirs,  their  neighbor  and  countryman, 
"going  about  doing  good?"  Was  he  not  healing 
their  sick,  causing  their  lame  to  leap,  their 
sightless  eyes  to  see,  their  silent  lips  to  utter 
speech,  their  closed  ears  to  hear  melodious 
sounds,  and  marvel  of  marvels !  their  dead  to  be 
raised  from  "cold  obstruction"  to  warm  and 
throbbing  life?  And  all  for  them !  Could  they 
be  other  than  grateful  for  his  kindness,  his  sym- 
pathy and  compassion?  They  looked  upon  him 
as  a  wise  and  powerful  friend,  who  took  their 
part  against  rich  and  heartless  oppressors,  and 
were  overwhelmed  with  pity  and  anguish  at  his 
cruel  and  pathetic  death.  And  for  their  sakes ! 
No  wonder  that  they  worshipped  him ! 


162  ROBERT  G.  TNCERSOLL 

The  early  Church,  growing  in  numbers  and 
power,  taking  advantage  of  this  loving  adora- 
tion, added  the  forces  of  mystery  and  command 
to  complete  its  mastery  of  souls.  Thus  did 
Christianity  as  a  system  begin,  and  thus  for 
centuries  did  it  continue  to  be,  like  all  other  reli- 
gions since  the  world  has  been.  We  have  found 
many  Christs  in  many  races,  many  lands.  We 
have  seen  many  systems  of  religion  appear  and 
disappear — arrive,  flourish,  decay  and  die. 
These  all  had  their  miraculous  births,  supersti- 
tious beliefs,  sacred  books,  cunning  priests, 
formal  ceremonies,  and  often  cruel  and  inhuman 
rites — with  millions  of  devoted  followers  to  at- 
test to  their  divine  mission  and  authority. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  believed,  in  all  sincerity,  that 
Christ  was  a  good  man,  not  an  imposter,  not  a 
hypocrite,  but  one  of  the  best  of  men  that  ever 
"touched  this  bank  and  shoal  of  Time."  He 
was  kind,  teuder  and  compassionate.  He  loved 
little  children  and  gathered  them  in  his  arms. 
In  his  ministry  he  was  intensely  earnest,  self- 
denying  and  indefatigable.  He  preached  and 
labored  for  no  salary, — gave  his  gospel  freely, 
"without  money  and  without  price,"  and  was  so 
poor  that  "he  had  not  where  to  lay  his  head," 
and  lived  on  the  hospitality  and  alms  of  his 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  163 

followers.  Very  like,  Mr.  Ingersoll  thought, 
the  itinerant  preachers  of  the  early  Methodist 
Church  who  were  more  or  less  warmly  wel- 
comed in  the  homes  of  their  flocks.  This  re- 
minded him  of  the  pious  woman  who  entertained 
several  ministers  of  her  denomination  attend- 
ing quarterly  conference.  On  the  first  morning 
of  their  stay  she  asked  her  husband  for  an  extra 
supply  of  money  to  do  the  marketing,  saying, — 
"You  know  them  religiouses  eats  orful!" 
Apropos  of  this  question  of  Christian  hospi- 
tality, so  often  abused,  a  minister  once  visited  a 
"brother"  living  in  another  city.  He  prolonged 
his  stay  beyond  a  reasonable  time.  Hints  that 
his  early  departure  would  not  greatly  grieve  the 
family,  were  not  taken.  At  last,  provoked,  the 
goodman  of  the  house  invoked  the  help  of  the 
Lord.  At  family  worship  one  morning  he 
prayed:  "When  our  brother  leaves  us  today,  go 
with  him,  bless  him  in  basket  and  in  store," — 
and  so  on.  The  prayer  was  quickly  answered, 
and  preacher  and  carpet-bag  disappeared  before 
the  hour  for  luncheon  had  arrived.  Another 
case  was  that  of  a  Christian  worker  who  late  at 
night,  and  without  notice,  brought  himself  and 
his  two  boys  to  a  "brother's"  home,  saying 
frankly  that  it  was  too  expensive  for  him  to  stop 


164  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

at  the  hotel !  Mr.  Ingersoll  did  not  mean  to  con- 
demn or  disparage  the  hospitality  of  the  early- 
Christian  disciples,  but  he  thought  the  modern 
practice  of  ''pious  billeting,"  as  he  termed  it, 
somewhat  overdone. 

In  the  story  of  Mary  and  Martha — probably 
apocryphal — Mr.  Ingersoll  thought  that  Christ 
as  a  guest  was  hardly  fair  to  Martha — not  as 
appreciative  as  he  might  have  been  of  her  "care- 
ful" concern  for  his  bodily  comfort.  His  ex- 
travagant praise  for  Mary  should  have  been 
equally  shared  by  both  sisters.  He  seemed  to 
have  been  more  pleased  with  the  loving  atten- 
tions of  Mary,  who  sat  at  his  feet  anointing 
them  with  oil,  bathing  them  with  tears,  and 
wiping  them  with  her  flowing  tresses,  than  he 
was  with  the  "poorer  part"  that  Martha  "chose" 
in  entertaining  him.  Martha  stood  in  the 
kitchen,  as  we  might  say  in  modern  parlance, 
cooking,  baking  and  then  serving  the  food,  and 
really  loving  him,  while  Mary  stayed  in  the  par- 
lor kneeling  and  adoring.  As  one  has  put  it: 
*'Maiy  wept,  Martha  swept."  Mr.  IngersolFs 
choice  was  for  Martha  as  the  better  hostess. 

Christ  was  serene,  serious,  sad  and  solemn, 
as  befitted  his  great  mission.  "Jesus  w^ept." 
He  could  not  be  jovial,  gay,  or  flippant,  light- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  165 

hearted  or  humorous.  We  do  not  know  that  he 
ever  enjoyed  a  joke,  or  indulged  in  a  hearty 
laugh.  He  attended  a  wedding  feast,  and  may 
have  been  merry  over  the  wine  he  made  out  of 
water,  but  we  do  not  know.  We  do  know  that 
he  was  terribly  severe  in  his  denunciations  of 
wrong  and  of  wrong-doers,  and  sometimes  dis- 
played impatience  and  temper  when  displeased, 
and  administered  unmxerited  and  unjust  rebuke. 
On  one  occasion,  being  hungry,  he  approached  a 
fig  tree  expecting  fruit,  although  "the  time  of 
figs  was  not  yet,"  and  finding  ^'nothing  but 
leaves"  he  "cursed"  the  innocent  tree,  saying, 
"Let  no  fruit  grow  on  thee  henceforward  for- 
ever," and  instantly  the  poor  thing  "withered 
away."  Mr.  Ingersoll  coulc'  not  reconcile  this 
transaction  with  goodness  or  greatness,  and 
thought  that  a  "miracle  of  blessing"  rather  than 
of  cursing  should  then  and  there  have  been  per- 
formed. He  thought  and  hoped  that  the  story, 
like  others,  was  an  interpolation. 

The  simple  truth,  as  believed  by  Mr.  Inger- 
soll, is  that  Christ  was  an  oriental  Prophet,  a  re- 
ligious Reformer,  an  Evangelist,  a  Protestant 
against  the  evils  and  abuses,  the  false  teachings 
and  formal  rites  of  the  Jewish  sjmagogue  and 
altar.      He  was  an  Infidel  and  Heretic  in  the 


166  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

eyes  of  the  orthodox  of  his  day,  and  was  put  to 
a  cruel  and  shameful  death  on  the  cross  because 
he  dared  to  oppose  and  expose  the  errors  of  the 
church  of  his  fathers.  In  this  he  was  fearless, 
courageous,  heroic,  and  truly  one  of  the  greatest 
of  the  "glorious  army  of  Martyrs." 

He  must  have  been  attractive  and  magnetic 
in  his  person,  speech  and  manner,  and  capable  of 
strong  and  enduring  attachments — in  short,  an 
altogether  loving  and  lovable  man.  These  fine 
traits  in  him  Mr.  Ingersoll  fully  understood  and 
appreciated.  He  had  no  aversion,  no  hatred, 
only  praise,  for  the  Peasant  of  Palestine.  He 
was  not  an  enemy,  but  a  friend  of  the  human 
Christ,  notwithstanding  the  calumny  and  slan- 
der of  orthodox  priests  and  teachers.     He  said  : 

"And  let  me  say  here,  once  for  all,  that  for 
the  man  Christ  I  have  infinite  respect.  Let  me 
say,  once  for  all,  that  the  place  where  man  has 
died  for  man  is  holy  ground.  And  let  me  say, 
once  for  all,  that  to  that  great  and  serene  man 
I  gladly  pay  the  tribute  of  my  admiration  and 
my  tears.  He  was  an  infidel  in  his  time.  He 
was  regarded  as  a  blasphemer,  and  his  life  was 
destroyed  by  hypocrites,  who  have  in  all  ages, 
done  what  they  could  to  trample  freedom  and 
manhood  out  of  the  human  mind.    Had  I  lived 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  167 

at  that  time  I  would  have  been  his  friend,  and 
should  he  come  again  he  will  not  find  a  better 
friend  than  I  will  be. 

"That  is  for  the  man.  For  the  theological 
creation  I  have  a  different  feeling.  If  he  was, 
in  fact,  God,  he  knew  there  was  no  such  thing 
as  death.  He  knew  that  what  we  called  death 
was  but  the  eternal  opening  of  the  golden  gates 
of  everlasting  joy;  and  it  took  no  heroism  to 
face  a  death  that  was  eternal  life. 

"But  when  a  man,  when  a  poor  boy  sixteen 
years  of  age,  goes  upon  the  field  of  battle  to  keep 
his  flag  in  heaven,  not  knowing  but  death  ends 
all ;  not  knowing  but  that  when  the  shadows 
creep  over  him,  the  darkness  will  be  eternal, 
there  is  heroism.  For  the  man  who,  in  the  dark- 
ness, said:  "My  God,  why  hast  thou  forsaken 
me?" — for  that  man  I  have  nothing  but  respect, 
admiration,  and  love.  Back  of  the  theological 
shreds,  rags,  and  patches,  hiding  the  real  Christ, 
I  see  a  genuine  man." 

While  thus  recognizing  and  applauding  the 
high  moral  character  of  Christ,  and  his  many 
virtues.  Colonel  Ingersoll  could  not  see  from  the 
record  that  he  was  "intellectually  at  the  sum- 
mit" of  the  race.  He  certainly  had  but  a  nar- 
row field  of  observation  and  a  limited  experience. 


168  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

He  lived  but  a  few  years,  and  in  a  very  small 
and  poor  country,  and  his  "world"  was  confined 
to  Palestine  and  the  lands  bordering  on  the 
Mediterranean  sea.  He  had  not  heard  of  Amer- 
ica, and  knew  nothing  of  the  great  islands  and 
continents  peopled  with  millions  of  his  fellow 
creatures,  that  lay  beyond  the  scope  of  his  nar- 
row vision.  He  had  no  true  conception  of  the 
size  and  shape  of  the  earth,  knew  little  of  geo- 
graphy, geology,  ethnology,  or  cosmogony,  and 
still  less  of  astronomy.  He  was  ignorant  of  the 
motions  of  the  planets,  of  the  suns,  moons  and 
stars,  wheeling  in  their  orbits  through  the  infi- 
nite spaces.  He  perhaps  had  heard  of  "The 
Wise  Men"  and  the  "Star"  that  heralded  his 
birth,  but  made  no  mention  of  it.  Matthew  is 
the  only  evangelist  who  records  it.  He  was  not 
a  great  philosopher.  Most  of  his  philosophy 
was  provincial,  puerile,  crude  and  impossible. 
He  did  not  value  worldly  wisdom — his  "King- 
dom was  not  of  this  world."  He  was  not  an  in- 
ventor, voyager,  or  discoverer  of  new  facts  and 
forces  in  nature.  He  practised  none  of  the  fine 
arts, — ^was  not  a  painter,  sculptor  or  musician, 
although  he  was  poetic,  dramatic  and  highly  im- 
aginative,— traits  common  to  the  Oriental  tem- 
perament. He  was  not  a  historian — wrote  noth- 


""h 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  169 

ing — left  not  a  line  or  word,  not  even  a  signa- 
ture of  his  name.  He  said  nothing  about  educa- 
tion, the  rights  of  man,  popular  sovereignty  or 
statesmanship.  He  did  not  encourage  industry, 
thrift  and  economy,  or  the  habit  of  saving  for  the 
future,  telling  his  followers  to  "take  no  thought 
for  the  morrow,'^  that  it  was  useless  to  lay  up 
treasures  on  earth  for  the  end  of  all  things  was 
at  hand.  He  was  the  enemy  of  the  rich  and 
prosperous,  for  in  his  allegory  he  consigned 
Dives  to  Hades,  **not  because  he  was  bad,  but  be- 
cause he  was  rich,"  and  comforted  Lazarus  in 
Abraham's  bosom,  "not  because  he  was  good, 
but  because  he  was  poor."  He  did  not  grow 
eloquent  over  the  sacredness  of  home,  or  the 
blessedness  of  maternity.  He  never  married. 
The  Church  that  followed  him  and  bore  his  name 
regarded  and  still  regards  "the  priest  as  better 
than  a  father,  the  nun  holier  than  a  mother." 

His  was  supremely  a  heavenly  mission.  He 
subordinated  the  material  to  the  spiritual,  the 
joy  of  living  here  to  the  promise  of  greater  joy 
hereafter.  He  believed  the  end  was  near,  and 
said,  "This  generation  shall  not  pass  away,"  that 
those  who  heard  him  "should  not  taste  of  death," 
till  all  that  he  had  prophesied  had  been  fulfilled. 
The  things  he  did  not  say,  but  might  have  said, 


170  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

if  he  had  been  the  Divine  Teacher  knowing  all 
things,  past,  present  and  future,  seemed  more 
important  to  Mr.  Ingersoll  than  the  things  he  did 
say. 

*'If  Christ  was  in  fact  God,  he  knew  all  the 
future.  Before  him  like  a  panorama  moved  the 
history  yet  to  be.  He  knew  how  his  w^ords 
would  be  interpreted.  He  knew  what  crimes, 
what  horrors,  what  infamies,  would  be  com- 
mitted in  his  name.  He  knew  that  the  hungiy 
flames  of  persecution  would  climb  around  the 
limbs  of  countless  martyrs.  He  knew  that  thou- 
sands and  thousands  of  brave  men  and  women 
would  languish  in  dungeons  in  darkness,  filled 
with  pain.  He  knew  that  the  church  would  in- 
vent and  use  instruments  of  torture;  that  his 
followers  would  appeal  to  whip  and  fagot,  to 
chain  and  rack.  He  saw  what  creeds  would 
spring  like  poisonous  fungi  from  every  text.  He 
saw  the  ignorant  sects  waging  war  against  each 
other.  He  saw  thousands  of  men,  under  the 
orders  of  priests,  building  prisons  for  their  fel- 
low-men. He  saw  thousands  of  scaffolds  drip- 
ping with  the  best  and  bravest  blood.  He  saw 
his  followers  using  the  instruments  of  pain.  He 
heard  the  groans — saw  the  faces  white  with 
agony.    He  heard  the  shrieks  and  sobs  and  cries 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  171 

of  all  the  moaning,  martyred  multitudes.  He 
knew  that  commentaries  would  be  written  on  his 
words  with  swords,  to  be  read  by  the  light  of 
fagots.  He  knew  that  the  Inquisition  would  be 
born  of  the  teachings  attributed  to  him. 

**He  saw  the  interpolations  and  falsehoods 
that  hypocrisy  would  write  and  tell.  He  saw  all 
wars  that  would  be  waged,  and  knew  that  above 
these  fields  of  death,  these  dungeons,  these  rack- 
ings,  these  burnings,  these  executions,  for  a 
thousand  years  would  float  the  dripping  banner 
of  the  cross. 

"He  knew  that  hypocrisy  would  be  robed  and 
crowned — that  cruelty  and  credulity  would  rule 
the  world ;  knew  that  liberty  would  perish  from 
the  earth;  knew  that  popes  and  kings  in  his 
name  would  enslave  the  souls  and  bodies  of  men ; 
knew  that  they  would  persecute  and  destroy  the 
discoverers,  thinkers  and  inventors;  knew  that 
his  church  would  extinguish  reason^s  holy  light 
and  leave  the  world  without  a  star. 

"He  saw  his  disciples  extinguishing  the  eyes 
of  men,  flaying  them  alive,  cutting  out  their 
tongues,  searching  for  all  the  nerves  of  pain. 

"He  knew  that  in  his  name  his  followers 
would  trade  in  human  flesh ;  that  cradles  would 
be  robbed  and  women*s  breasts  unbabed  for  gold. 


172  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

"And  yet  he  died  with  voiceless  lips. 

**Why  did  he  fail  to  speak?  Why  did  he  not 
tell  his  disciples,  and  through  them  the  world: 
*You  shall  not  burn,  imprison  and  torture  in  my 
name.  You  shall  not  persecute  your  fellow- 
men.' 

"Why  did  he  not  plainly  say:  *I  am  the  Son 
of  God,'  or,  1  am  God?'  Why  did  he  not  ex- 
plain the  Trinity?  Why  did  he  not  tell  the 
mode  of  baptism  that  was  pleasing  to  him?  Why 
did  he  not  write  a  creed?  Why  did  he  not  break 
the  chains  of  slaves?  Why  did  he  not  say  that 
the  Old  Testament  was  or  was  not  the  inspired 
word  of  God?  Why  did  he  not  write  the  New 
Testament  himself?  Why  did  he  leave  his  words 
to  ignorance,  hypocrisy  and  chance?  Why  did 
he  not  say  something  positive,  definite  and  satis- 
factory about  another  world?  Why  did  he  not 
turn  the  tear-stained  hope  of  heaven  into  the 
glad  knowledge  of  another  life?  Why  did  he 
not  tell  us  something  of  the  rights  of  man,  of 
the  liberty  of  hand  and  brain? 

"Why  did  he  go  dumbly  to  his  death,  leaving 
the  world  to  misery  and  to  doubt? 

"I  will  tell  you  why.  He  was  a  man,  and 
did  not  know." 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  173 

ADMISSIONS  AND  EXCEPTIONS. 

Notwithstanding  Mr.  IngersolFs  pronounced 
views  of  the  character  and  teachings  of  the  man 
Christ,  and  his  emphatic  denials  and  denuncia- 
tions of  orthodox  theology,  he  repeatedly  ex- 
pressed, both  in  his  public  utterances  and  pri- 
vate conversations,  these  thoughts : 

"I  admit  that  there  are  many  good  and 
beautiful  passages  in  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ments; that  from  the  lips  of  Christ  dropped 
many  pearls  of  kindness, — of  love.  Every  verse 
that  is  true  and  tender  I  treasure  in  my  heart. 
Every  thought  behind  which  is  the  tear  of  pity 
I  appreciate  and  love.  But  I  cannot  accept  it 
all.  Many  utterances  attributed  to  Christ  shock 
my  brain  and  heart.  They  are  absurd  and 
cruel. 

"Take  from  the  New  Testament  the  infinite 
savagery,  the  shoreless  malevolence  of  eternal 
pain,  the  absurdity  of  salvation  by  faith,  the  ig- 
norant belief  in  the  existence  of  devils,  the  im- 
morality and  cruelty  of  the  Atonement,  the  doc- 
trine of  non-resistance  that  denies  to  virtue  the 
right  of  self-defense,  and  how  glorious  it  would 
be  to  know  that  the  remainder  is  true!  Com- 
pared with  this  knowledge,  how  everything  else 


174  ROBERT  G.  INGBRSOLL 

in  nature  would  shrink  and  shrivel!  What 
ecstacy  it  would  be  to  know  that  God  exists,  that 
he  is  our  father  and  that  he  loves  and  cares  for 
the  children  of  men !  To  know  that  all  the  paths 
that  human  beings  travel,  turn  and  wind  as  they 
may,  lead  to  the  gates  of  stainless  peace?  How 
the  heart  would  thrill  and  throb  to  know  that 
Christ  was  the  conqueror  of  Death ;  that  at  his 
grave  the  all-devouring  monster  was  baffled  and 
beaten  forever ;  that  from  that  moment  the  tomb 
became  the  door  that  opens  on  eternal  life !  To 
know  this  would  change  all  sorrow  into  glad- 
ness. Poverty,  failure,  disaster,  defeat,  power, 
place  and  wealth  would  become  meaningless 
sounds.  To  take  your  babe  upon  your  knee  and 
say:  *Mine  and  mine  forever!'  What  joy!  To 
clasp  the  woman  you  love  in  your  arms  and  to 
know  that  she  is  yours  and  forever — yours 
though  suns  darken  and  constellations  vanish! 
This  is  enough :  To  know  that  the  loved  and  dead 
are  not  lost ;  that  they  still  live  and  love  and  wait 
for  you.  To  know  that  Christ  dispelled  the 
darkness  of  death  and  filled  the  grave  with  eter- 
nal light.  To  know  this  would  be  all  that  the 
heart  could  bear.  Beyond  this  joy  cannot  go. 
Beyond  this  there  is  no  place  for  hope." 

In  the  foregoing  statement  of  Mr.  IngersolFs 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  175 

view  of  Christ  and  his  teachings,  the  writer  has 
given  only  a  few  extracts  and  attempted  only 
the  merest  outline,  the  most  meager  and  superfi- 
cial survey,  of  the  subject.  He  feels  that  he  has 
only  touched  the  hem  of  a  wonderfully  woven 
intellectual  garment,  reached  but  the  boundary 
line  and  not  explored  the  interior,  the  heights 
and  widths  and  depths  of  Mr.  Ingersoll's  uni- 
versal genius.  Who  would  penetrate  further 
must  be  referred  to  his  published  works  in  their 
complete  "Dresden"  offering. 

While  never  professing  or  pretending  to  be  a 
"poet"  in  the  accepted  meaning  of  the  term,  Mr. 
Ingersoll  was  yet  highly  poetic  in  temperament, 
thought  and  expression.  What  he  modestly 
called,  or  his  admirers  called,  "Prose  Poems," 
abundantly  show  this.  All  his  writings  and 
sayings  display  it.  Sometimes  he  would  invoke 
the  muse  and  jot  down  on  bits  of  paper  his  vivid 
imagery  in  metrical  numbers.  Many  of  these 
scraps,  most  of  them  very  beautiful,  were  found 
in  his  literary  remains.  He  thought  it  worth 
while,  in  summing  up  his  views,  to  put  them  in 
verse,  and  so  he  gave  us  this  comprehensive 
rhythmical  summary,  called  his  creed,  or  his 


176  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

X. 

DECLARATION  OF  THE  FREE. 

"We  have  no  falsehoods  to  defend — 

We  want  the  facts ; 
Our  force,  our  thought,  v;e  do  not  spend 

In  vain  attacks. 
And  we  will  never  meanly  try 
To  save  some  fair  and  pleasing  lie. 

"The  simple  truth  is  what  we  ask, 

Not  the  ideal; 
We've  set  ourselves  the  noble  task 

To  find  the  real. 
If  all  there  is  is  naught  but  dross, 
We  want  to  know  and  bear  our  loss. 

"We  will  not  willingly  be  fooled, 

By  fables  nursed; 
Our  hearts,  by  earnest  thought,  are  schooled 

To  bear  the  worst; 
And  we  can  stand  erect  and  dare 
All  things,  all  facts  that  really  are. 

"We  have  no  God  to  serve  or  fear, 
No  hell  to  shun, 
No  devil  with  malicious  leer. 
When  life  is  done 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  177 

An  endless  sleep  may  close  our  eyes, 
A  sleep  with  neither  dreams  nor  sighs. 

"We  have  no  master  on  the  land — 

No  king  in  air — 
Without  a  miracle  we  stand, 

Without  a  prayer, 
Without  a  fear  of  coming  night; 
We  seek  the  truth,  we  love  the  light. 

**We  do  not  bow  before  a  guess, 

A  vague  unknown; 
A  senseless  force  we  do  not  bless 

In  solemn  tone. 
When  evil  comes  we  do  not  curse, 
Or  thank  because  it  is  no  worse. 

"When  cyclones  rend — ^when  lightning  blights, 

'Tis  naught  but  fate; 
There  is  no  God  of  wrath  who  smites 

In  heartless  hate. 
Behind  the  things  that  injure  man 
There  is  no  purpose,  thought,  or  plan. 

"We  waste  no  time  in  useless  dread. 

In  trembling  fear; 
The  present  lives,  the  past  is  dead, 

And  we  are  here. 
All  welcome  guests  at  life's  great  feast — 
We  need  no  help  from  ghost  or  priest. 


178  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

"Our  life  is  joyous,  jocund,  free — 

Not  one  a  slave 
Who  bends  in  fear  the  trembling  knee, 

And  seeks  to  save 
A  coward  soul  from  future  pain ; 
Not  one  will  cringe  or  crawl  for  gain. 

"The  jeweled  cup  of  love  we  drain. 

And  friendship's  wine 
Now  swiftly  flows  in  every  vein 

With  waimth  divine. 
And  so  we  love  and  hope  and  dream 
That  in  death's  sky  there  is  a  gleam. 

"We  walk  according  to  our  light; 

Pursue  the  path 
That  leads  to  honor's  stainless  height, 

Careless  of  wrath 
Or  curse  of  God,  or  priestly  spite, 
Longing  to  know  and  do  the  right. 

"We  love  our  fellow  man,  our  kind, 

Wife,  child,  and  friend. 
To  phantoms  we  are  deaf  and  blind. 

But  we  extend 
The  helping  hand  to  the  distressed; 
By  lifting  others  we  are  blessed. 

"Love's  sacred  flame,  within  the  heart's 
And  friendship's  glow; 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  179 

While  all  the  miracles  of  art 

Their  wealth  bestow 
Upon  the  thrilled  and  joyous  brain, 
And  present  raptures  banish  pain. 

"We  love  no  phantoms  of  the  skies, 

But  living-  flesh, 
With  passion's  soft  and  soulful  eyes, 

Lips  warm  and  fresh. 
And  cheeks  with  health's  red  flag  unfurled, 
The  breathing  angels  of  this  world. 

"The  hands  that  help  are  better  far 

Than  lips  that  pray. 
Love  is  the  ever  gleaming  star 

That  leads  the  way, 
That  shines,  not  on  vague  worlds  of  bliss. 
But  on  a  paradise  in  this. 

"We  do  not  pray,  or  weep,  or  wail; 
We  have  no  dread, 
No  fear  to  pass  beyond  the  veil 

That  hides  the  dead. 
And  yet  we  question,  di^am,  and  guess. 
But  knowledge  we  do  not  possess. 

**We  ask,  yet  nothing  seems  to  know; 

We  cry  in  vain. 
There  is  no  'master  of  the  show* 
Who  will  explain. 


180  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

Or  from  the  future  tear  the  mask; 
And  yet  we  dream,  and  still  we  ask: 

"Is  there  beyond  the  silent  night 

An  endless  day? 
Is  death  a  door  that  leads  to  light? 

We  cannot  say. 
The  tongueless  secret  locked  in  fate 
We  do  not  know. — ^We  hope  and  wait." 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  181 

XI. 

HIS  PERSONALITY. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  was  physically  a  handsome 
man.  His  form  was  large  and  well  proportion- 
ed, his  carriage  erect  and  firm.  His  manners 
were  unaffected,  easy  and  natural,  gracious  and 
engaging.  Whether  in  motion  or  at  rest  he  had 
the  air  and  poise  that  denote  the  man  of  mark. 
He  was  stout  and  muscular — ^weighing  some- 
times as  much  as  two  hundred  and  thirty 
pounds,  which  he  thought  was  perhaps  a  little 
excessive  for  his  height  of  five  feet  ten  and  a  half 
inches.  His  shoulders  were  broad  and  strong, 
well  suited  to  support  the  splendid  head  they 
carried.  His  every  feature  was  most  facile  in 
expression, — all  his  thoughts  and  feelings 
seemed  reflected  there.  So  open,  frank  and  un- 
concealing  was  his  countenance^  he  could  not 
without  an  effort  hide  from  view  a  single  passion 
or  emotion,  and  even  his  thoughts  sometimes 
revealed  themselves  to  close  observers.  When 
lighted  with  the  smile  that  played  so  often  round 
his  mobile  mouth,  his  presence  was  illuminated 
as  with  sunshine.  There  never  was  a  more 
glowing  personality.       His  entrance  into  any 


182  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

social  circle  was  like  a  sun-burst, — he  radiated 
life  and  light  and  joy.  In  truth,  none  could  long 
be  with  him,  and  come  to  know  him  well,  but 
felt  that  here  he  saw  a  "combination  and  a  form, 
indeed,  where  every  god  did  seem  to  set  his  seal 
to  give  the  world  assurance  of  a  man." 

UNSUSPICIOUS. 

He  was  not  suspicious.  He  used  to  say  that 
Suspicion  was  the  blackest  imp  in  the  pit.  He 
was  simple,  direct,  guileless  and  unsuspecting 
as  a  child,  and  was  often  imposed  upon  on  this 
unarmored  side  of  his  nature.  Designing  men 
too  often  found  in  him  an  easy  prey, — not  al- 
ways or  so  much,  perhaps,  because  he  did  not 
sometimes  detect  their  duplicity  as  that  he  did 
not  wish  harshly  to  judge  and  tax  a  man  with 
falseness  to  his  face.  He  preferred  himself  to 
suffer  rather  than  to  cause  suffering  to  others. 
He  preferred  to  pity  more  than  punish.  He 
could  not  cherish  anger,  gave  no  harbor  to 
revenge.  He  was  considerate,  forgiving,  com- 
passionate. 

Even  when  he  knew  that  favors  scattered  by 
him  would  never  be  returned,  he  kept  on  shower- 
ing them;  that  pledges  made  would  not  be  re- 
deemed, that  monies  loaned  would  never  be  re- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  183 

paid,  he  kept  on  giving.  He  could  not  bear  to 
deny  a  request.  He  would  say :  "Poor  fellow,  he 
needed  it;  it  is  so  good  to  get  a  boost  when  one 
is  trying  to  climb.  I  would  rather  lose  what 
I  give  than  lose  the  desire  to  give.  I  would 
sooner  give  than  beg,  loan  than  borrow,  be  cheat- 
ed than  cheat,  be  wronged  than  wrong  another." 

His  time,  his  services  and  his  means  were 
given  to  others  in  a  lavish  way.  Money  was  to 
him  but  leaves  to  be  scattered.  He  rebuked  his 
wealthy  friends  for  hoarding  and  said:  "The 
rich  should  be  extravagant,  for  that  gives  work; 
the  poor  economical,  for  thus  they  may  one  day 
become  rich.'* 

He  denounced  the  miserly  spirit,  the 
passion  for  mere  possession,  indulged  by  too 
many  of  the  rich,  and  said:  "What  would  you 
think  of  a  man  who  had  a  thousand  neckties, 
lying  awake  nights  contriving  how  he  might  add 
one  more  tie  to  his  collection?"  In  his  family 
his  purse  belonged  to  all.  He  kept  no  secret 
drawers,  no  locks  or  keys,  no  bolts  or  bars,  on 
his  possessions.  For  them  to  want  a  thing  was 
to  have  it,  to  express  a  wish  to  fulfill  it,  so  that 
many  a  costly  longing  was  concealed  from  him 
lest  he  should  discover  and  indulge  it. 


184  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

SOMETIMES  SAD. 

Although  his  outward  mien  was,  as  the  rule, 
cheerful  and  happy,  he  yet  at  times,  and  many 
times,  was  serious  and  even  sad.  He  bore  the 
burdens  of  others.  His  sympathies  were  so 
deep  and  wide  and  strong,  that  while  he  "laughed 
with  those  who  laughed"  he  "wept  with  those 
who  wept,"  and  often  have  I  seen  him  touched  to 
tears  at  the  tales  of  woe  freely  poured  into  his 
listening  ears.  The  sights  and  sounds  of  suf- 
fering profoundly  moved  him.  He  could  not  go 
down  into  the  homes  of  the  sorrowful,  the 
wretched  and  distressed, — it  overcame  him,  un- 
nerved him — ^but  he  sent  relief  by  other  hands, 
and  was  in  his  quiet,  unobtrusive  way  a  large 
and  frequent  almoner  of  the  poor.  His  tender 
sympathies  embraced  not  only  human  kind  but 
all  the  world  of  sentient  life.  He  was  an  early 
and  devoted  friend  of  Henry  Bergh,  and  by  voice 
and  pen  did  valiant  service  in  the  crusade 
against  cruelty  to  animals.  He  waged  war 
against  vivisection,  believing  that  the  useful 
ends  of  science  could  be  well  enough  attained 
without  the  need  of  touching  all  the  nerves  of 
pain.  The  discoverers  of  anaesthetics  he  en- 
rolled among  his  aureoled  saints. 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  185 

AN  IDEAL  DOMESTIC  MAN. 

He  had  hosts  of  friends  and  choice  acquaint- 
ances, but  few  intimates  to  whom  he  opened  out 
his  heart.  He  commanded  admiration  and  es- 
teem, but  did  not  encourage  undue  familiarity. 
His  manner  was  always  cordial  but  never  effu- 
sive or  obtrusive.  He  was  a  social  but  not  a 
society  man,  so-called;  not  a  frequent  visitor, — 
preferred  his  own  home — ^to  be  the  host  rather 
than  the  guest.  His  friends  called  on  him  of- 
tener  than  he  on  them,  but  they  always  found  a 
welcome  warm  and  hearty  when  they  came.  In 
fact,  his  own  home  circle,  with  its  chosen  few, 
made  for  him  the  centre  and  circumference  of 
his  social  world.  He  was  an  ideal  domestic  and 
family  man,  loving  his  hearthstone  and  dwelling 
beside  it  happy  and  satisfied. 

This  favored  fireside,  with  its  glowing  com- 
forts and  true  refinements,  its  adornments  of 
art  and  nature,  its  growing  plants  and  flowers, 
its  books  and  pictures,  paintings  and  statues, 
its  precious  mementoes  from  friends  and  ad- 
mirers in  all  lands,  its  music  and  its  songs,  its 
conversations  and  readings,  its  games  and  pas- 
times, its  mirth  and  laughter,  its  all  pervading 
air  and  light  of  love  and  joy, — this  fireside,  was 


186  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

as  near  paradise  as  man  and  woman  and  child 
can  make  on  earth.  Can  we  wonder  that  they 
who  made  it  loved  to  linger  by  it?  The  hus- 
band and  father  never  left  it  for  a  business  or 
lecture  tour  without  reluctance,  nor  returned  to 
it  without  delight.  When  away  on  such  a  tour, 
never  a  day  passed  but  he  sent  his  love  message 
home  by  wire  and  got  back  the  quick  response, 
"all  well,  love  from  all." 

In  every  place  he  visited  his  admirers  en- 
treated him  to  become  their  guest,  but  out  of 
consideration  for  them  he  declined,  and  stopped 
at  the  hotel  instead.  He  did  not  wish  to  accept 
a  hospitality  he  could  not,  under  the  circum- 
stances inseparable  from  lecturing,  return. 
When  away  from  home  and  in  the  busy  world 
Mr.  Ingersoll  was  not  a  distant,  solitary  and 
unsocial  being  whom  strangers,  even,  hesitated 
to  approach.  It  was  just  the  other  way.  He 
could  scarcely  walk  the  streets  without  accept- 
ing greetings  from  every  side.  He  was  one  of 
the  most  approachable  of  men,  the  humblest  as 
well  as  the  greatest  finding  equal  access  to  his 
attention. 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  187 

A  GENEROUS  LIVER. 

He  loved  a  genial  companion  and  could  not 
bear  to  be  alone ;  some  one  always  walked  or  rode 
with  him.  I  never  knew  him  to  eat  a  solitary 
lunch  or  meal.  At  mid-day  in  his  office,  when 
the  hour  arrived,  he  did  not  leave  without  invit- 
ing his  secretary,  or  one  of  his  clerks  or  students 
or  a  friend — sometimes  several — to  go  with  him 
and  share  his  steak  or  chops,  his  terrapin  or 
game.  He  was  a  generous  liver,  fond  of  all  good 
things,  and  did  not  hesitate  to  join  his  friends 
in  a  social  glass.  He  made  no  apology  for  this 
and  wished  none  made  for  him.  On  this  ques- 
tion he  was  moderate  and  temperate.  He  be- 
lieved that  in  the  abuse  and  not  the  rightful  use 
of  stimulants  lay  the  harm.  Liberty  in  this  as 
in  other  things  he  held  high  and  paramount. 
Without  liberty  to  use  there  could  be  no  abuse, 
no  responsibility.  Excess  should  be  restrain- 
ed, liberty  never.  No  one  has  more  faithfully 
or  eloquently  portrayed  the  frightful  dangers 
of  the  cup,  nor  any  one  more  glowingly  pictured 
its  fascinations. 

As  for  himself,  he  governed  well  his  appetite, 
and  could  and  did  refrain  from  any  and  every 
indulgence  when  his  physician  advised,  or  he 


188  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

himself  believed,  his  health  required  it.  Even 
his  loved  cigar  he  laid  aside,  or  its  use  restrict- 
ed, when  he  thought  he  would  be  the  better  for 
it.  In  the  effort  to  reduce  his  flesh  he  denied 
himself  for  weeks  and  months  all  luxuries  of 
the  table — confined  his  diet  to  the  narrowest 
regimen,  and  declined  all  sweets  and  fat-pro- 
ducing foods  with  resolute  firmness  and  appar- 
ently the  greatest  ease. 

A  STEADFAST  FRIEND. 

He  was  a  staunch  and  loyal  friend.  Those 
honored  with  his  confidence  and  favored  with 
his  esteem  found  him  true  to  the  highest  ideals^ 
the  best  traditions,  of  friendship.  To  them  he 
was  as  true  as  steel,  as  steady  as  a  fixed  star. 
He  wanted  in  his  friend  the  qualities  of  natural- 
ness, frankness  and  openness  of  speech  and 
manner.  To  such  he  was  a  rare  companion,  a 
whole-hearted,  generous,  noble  comrade.  He 
hated  deceit,  indirection,  sham  and  false  preten- 
sion. He  did  not  like  solemnity  and  so-called 
dignity — thought  them  mostly  masks  for  vanity 
or  hypocrisy.  He  knew  he  was  superior  to  most 
men,  but  made  no  boast  of  it.  He  had  great 
consideration,  unbounded  charity,  for  the  faults 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  189 

and  frailties  of  his  fellow-men,  and  pitied 
oftener  than  blamed. 

As  before  stated,  his  philosophy  of  human 
conduct  was  expressed  in  his  simple  dictum, "he 
does  as  he  must.".  All  man  needs  is  light;  his 
darkness  is  but  ignorance;  when  his  horizon 
broadens  his^'^iew  will  be  clearer. 

He  wondered  at  the  cheerful  assent  accorded 
by  the  religious  world  to  the  musty  maxims, 
dusty  dogmas,  decrees  and  traditions  of  the 
superstitious  past;  at  the  "dominion  of  the  ceme- 
tery" over  the  progressive  and  more  enlightened 
present;  at  the  "thoughtless  yes"  so  readily  yield- 
ed to  the  creeds  of  the  churches,  and  at  the  syco- 
phantic deference  shown  towards  the  persons 
and  ofRce  of  the  priesthood,  and  the  servile 
obedience  to  its  commands.  He  marvelled  at 
the  credulity  of  men,  the  ease  with  which  their 
minds  were  swayed,  their  judgment  warped, 
their  selfhood  bartered,  their  freedom  surrend- 
ered, and  he  labored  to  restore  to  them  their 
birthright. 

A  MODEST  MAN. 

Colonel  Ingersoll  was  an  unaffectedly  modest 
man.  He  disliked  notoriety,  and  avoided,  so 
far  as  he  could,  every  manifestation  of  it.  Many 


190  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

requests  came  to  him  from  publishers  of  ency- 
clopedias and  compilers  of  biographical  volumes, 
for  a  sketch  of  his  life.  He  invariably  declined 
to  furnish  it,  saying:  "A  life  should  not  be  writ- 
ten until  it  has  been  lived."  He  discouraged 
the  calling  of  children  after  him,  although  hun- 
dreds  bear  his  name  to-day.  Albums  without 
number  were  sent  to  him  for  his  autograph,  and 
a  "sentiment,'*  and  literally  thousands  of  re- 
quests were  made  for  his  signature.  Many  of 
these  he  granted  out  of  an  obliging  spirit,  but 
the  practice  did  not  please  him  overmuch  or  meet 
his  full  approval. 

As  all  the  world  knows,  he  spoke  his  mind 
freely,  fully,  without  fear,  without  reserve. 
What  he  thought  and  felt  he  said,  and  his  mean- 
ing was  always  plain ;  but  he  was  not  arrogant 
or  dogmatic,  only  positive,  in  his  speech.  The 
language  of  deference  and  inquiry  was  as  often 
on  his  lips  as  that  of  mere  assertion.  "Don't 
you  think?"  or  "Isn^t  it  so?"  were  frequent 
phrases  in  his  daily  conversation  and  remark. 
/He  was,  in  truth,  the  mouthpiece  and  advo- 
cate, the  prophet  and  reformer,  of  his  day  and 
generation.7 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  191 

HIS  RESPECT  FOR  WOMAN. 

Mr.  Ingersoll  had  a  knightly  reverence  and 
respect  for  womanhood.  In  the  presence  of  wo- 
men, and  in  all  his  relations  with  them,  he  was 
always  the  courteous,  affable,  gallant  gentle- 
man. They,  in  turn,  admired  and  esteemed  him 
greatly, — looked  upon  him  as  an  ideal  man.  It 
may  be  worthy  of  note  in  this  connection  to  say, 
that  in  all  the  hundreds  of  letters  he  received 
from  women,  everywhere, — and  it  was  my  privi- 
lege to  read  them  all — I  never  saw  one,  not  one, 
that  contained  a  suggestive  or  compromising 
word  of  a  doubtful  or  double  meaning — an  hon- 
or to  their  womanhood  and  a  compliment  to  his 
manhood.  He  rejoiced  to  note  the  ever- widen- 
ing avenues  for  the  employment  of  women  and 
the  better  appreciation  of  their  talents  and  capa- 
bilities, and  believed  that  they  were  entitled  to 
receive  and  should  receive  equal  pay  with  men 
for  equal  work.  He  keenly  enjoyed  the  society 
of  the  refined  and  cultivated  among  them,  and 
freely  admitted  and  said  that  woman,  the  world 
over,  in  all  that  made  for  the  uplifting  of  the 
race,  was  man's  superior.  He  regarded  her, 
to  use  his  own  words,  as  "the  true  aristocrat 
of  the  world." 


192  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

HIS  LOVE  FOR  CHILDREN. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say,  that  with  such 
a  nature  as  his,  Mr.  Ingersoll  was  fond  of  child- 
ren. He  loved  to  have  them  near  him,  enjoyed 
their  innocent  prattle,  their  merry  laugh,  and 
they  instinctively  turned  to  him,  opening  up  the 
treasures  of  their  guileless  hearts  as  to  a  great 
and  sympathizing  friend.  More  than  once  have 
I  seen  the  tired  mother  on  a  train  relieved  of  her 
fretful  babe,  and  when  other  passengers  looked, 
if  they  did  not  say,  "stop  the  brat!"  he,  the 
gentle  man,  took  the  child  in  his  arms  and  with 
the  equal  of  a  mother's  art  soothed  it  to  peaceful 
sleep.  He  pleaded  for  justice,  patience,  liberty 
and  love  for  childhood.  He  could  not  see 
how  a  father,  not  to  think  a  moment  of  a  mother, 
could  strike  a  blow  with  hand  or  rod  or  whip  to 
smart  the  flesh  of  a  helpless,  tender  child.  To 
him,  such  an  act,  whether  done  through  impa- 
tience, ungoverned  passion,  or  from  a  mistaken 
"sense  of  duty,"  was  a  mean  and  cowardly  deed. 
He  believed  that  oftener  the  parent  than  the 
child  deserved  the  whip  and  rod. 

THE  LAUGH  OF  A  CHILD. 

He  was  indeed  a  worthy  champion  of  child- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  19S 

ren's  rights*  To  him  their  merry  laughter  was 
music.  Was  ever  a  finer  thing  on  the  laugh  of 
a  child  put  in  words,  than  this  by  Robert  G. 
Ingersoll? — 

"The  laugh  of  a  child  will  make  the  holiest 
day  more  sacred  still.  Strike  with  hand  of  fire, 
0  weird  musician,  thy  harp  strung  with  Ap- 
ollo's golden  hair;  fill  the  vast  cathedral  aisles 
with  symphonies  sweet  and  dim,  deft  toucher 
of  the  organ  keys;  blow,  bugler,  blow,  until  the 
silver  notes  do  touch  and  kiss  the  moonlit  waves, 
and  charm  the  lovers  wandering  'mid  the  vine- 
clad  hills.  But  know,  your  sweetest  strains  are 
discords  all,  compared  with  childhood's  happy 
laugh — the  laugh  that  fills  the  eyes  with  light 
and  every  heart  with  joy.  0  rippling  river  of 
laughter !  thou  art  the  blessed  boundary  line  be- 
tween the  beasts  and  men ;  and  every  wayward 
wave  of  thine  doth  drown  some  fretful  fiend  of 
care.  0  Laughter !  rose-lipped  daughter  of  Joy, 
there  are  dimples  enough  in  thy  cheeks  to  catch 
and  hold  and  glorify  all  the  tears  of  grief." 

DEVOTION  TO  HIS  FAMILY. 

Mr.  Ingersoll's  devotion  to  his  family,  so  ten- 
der, loving  and  gallant,  was  beautiful  to  see. 
There  surely  never  lived  a  more  affectionate 


194  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

brother,  a  truer,  nobler  husband,  a  dearer, 
fonder  father,  or  a  more  precious  grandfather. 
He  was  always  the  lover,  adoring  and  adored. 
He  deified  wife  and  children.  The  noble  mother 
was  a  goddess,  their  children  cherubs,  their  home 
a  heaven.  A  holier,  sweeter,  happier  home  was 
never  built  and  kept  beneath  the  stars  than  Rob- 
ert Green  IngersolFs.  The  open  secret  of  it  all 
was  Liberty  and  Love.  There  were  no  com- 
mands, no  threats,  no  penalties,  no  punishments. 
Errors  were  corrected  with  caresses, carelessness 
rebuked  with  kisses,  faults  remedied  with  fav- 
ors, and  accompanying  these  were  reasonable  re- 
quests, right  precepts,  wise  counsels,  and  rising 
over  all  a  shining,  glorious  example. 

A  friend  once  said  to  the  younger  daughter, 
Mrs.  Maud  Ingersoll  Probasco:  *'Your  father 
was  a  great  man."  Out  of  the  impulsive  eager- 
ness of  her  heart  she  exclaimed:  **My  father  was 
not  a  man,  he  was  a  god !"  and  this  exalted  feel- 
ing was  shared  by  all  the  members  of  his  family. 

"RECANTING." 

A  false  rumor  widely  spread  toward  the  close 
of  his  life,  and  repeated  with  added  particulars 
since  his  death,  is  that  he  "recanted"  as  he  drew 
near  the  end  of  his  career  and  embraced  Chris- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  195 

tianity.  It  is  not  so.  He  did  not  weaken  or 
waver  for  an  instant.  It  was  just  the  opposite. 
He  said  that  the  longer  he  lived  the  more  con- 
vinced and  confirmed  he  was  in  the  truth  of  his 
teachings  and  the  stronger  became  his  convic- 
tions regarding  religion.  He  has  so  expressed 
himself  to  me  and  to  others  many  times.  He 
died  as  he  had  lived,  a  confident  and  ardent 
Agnostic.  Since  his  death,  the  attempt  has  been 
made  in  many  quarters  to  show  that  he — ^as 
fabled  of  his  illustrious  predecessors  Paine  and 
Voltaire — died  cursing  and  blaspheming.  His- 
tory has  been  distorted  and  perverted  by  priestly 
prejudice  and  malice,  and  by  orthodox  meanness 
and  mendacity,  in  their  cases,  and  the  probabil- 
ity is  that  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Ingersoll,  unless  the 
real  facts  are  known,  and  even  after  they  are 
known,  error  will  continue  to  deny  and  despise 
the  truth,  "world  without  end.'' 

POST-MORTEM   TALES. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  crusade  of  falsehood 
and  calumny  has  already  begim.  One  report 
now  in  circulation  is,  that  Colonel  Ingersoll 
called  for  a  "religious  confessor,'*  and  that  a 
Koman  Catholic  priest  was  present  at  his  death- 


196  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

bed,  and  on  his  '^repentance'*  gave  him  "abso- 
lution."    Unqualifiedly  false ! 

As  another  illustration  of  the  reliance  to  be 
placed  on  these  post-mortem  tales  about  great 
men  and  their  dying  testimonies,  let  me  here 
cite  a  personal  experience.  A  gentleman  whom 
I  recently  met  in  Southern  California,  told  me 
in  all  earnestness  the  true  story,  as  he  called  it, 
of  Mr.  Ingersoll's  last  moments.  He  said  that 
these  moments  were  filled  with  fear  and  re- 
morse ;  that  over  and  over  again  he  expressed  re- 
gret that  he  had  spent  so  much  of  his  life  in 
opposing  Christianity,  and  that  he  called  on  God 
for  pardon  and  mercy.  I  asked  for  his  authority. 
He  said  that  both  himself  and  wife  were  ac- 
quainted with  the  nurse,  a  lady  who  attended  the 
Colonel  during  the  last  days  of  his  illness,  and 
that  they  had  the  account  directly  from  her. 
Such  testimony,  he  said,  could  not  be  gainsaid  or 
denied.  He  was  astonished  when  he  found  who 
I  was  and  what  I  knew,  and  was  silent  if  not 
convinced. 

The  simple  truth  is,  that  no  physician,  no 
priest,  no  minister,  no  nurse  was  present  either 
before  or  at  his  death, — none  could  be  called, 
nor  could  any  have  been  of  the  slightest  use, — 
his  illness  was  so  short  and  the  end  so  unex- 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  197 

pected,  so  startlingly  sudden.  Not  even  the  be- 
loved members  of  his  family  could  be  with  him, 
so  quickly  and  without  warning  did  the  end 
come.  Only  his  adored  and  adoring  wife  heard 
his  last  playful  word  and  saw  his  last  loving 
look. 

Let  me  here  tell  briefly  the  real  facts  as  they 
were  told  to  me  by  Mrs.  Ingersoll, — ^facts  which 
the  family  subsequently  made  the  subject  of  an 
affidavit  duly  executed  and  filed  for  preservation 
and  reference: 

It  was  learned  after  his  death,  that  he  knew, 
or  suspected  he  had  not  long  to  live,  and  that  his 
thread  of  life  would  be  suddenly  snapped,  the 
golden  bowl  be  broken.  It  was  said  by  one  of 
the  servants  of  his  family  that  he  heard  the 
doctor — months  before  the  fatal  day — ask  the 
Colonel  if  he  realized  that  he  might  die  at  any 
moment,  and  he  replied:  "perfectly." 


198  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

XII. 

HIS  LAST  ILLNESS  AND  DEATH. 

The  night  before  his  death  had  been  a  rest- 
less one.  He  suffered  considerably  from  indi- 
gestion, but  recovered  sufficiently  to  be  able  to 
join  his  family  at  breakfast  in  the  morning. 
After  breakfast  he  sat  in  his  easy  chair  on  the 
broad  piazza  enjoying  the  soft  summer  air  and 
viewing  the  landscape  with  the  Hudson  River 
placidly  flowing  at  his  feet.  He  sat  thus  for 
more  than  an  hour,  gazing,  reading  and  quietly 
conversing  with  those  of  his  family  who  were 
about  him.  No  portent  of  the  swiftly  advancing 
shadow  appeared  in  either  his  look  or  manner. 
Beginning  to  feel  a  little  drowsy,  he  rose  from 
his  chair  at  half -past  ten  o'clock,  saying  that  he 
felt  like  taking  a  nap  up-stairs,  but  that  he 
would  be  down  before  luncheon  and  challenge 
his  son-in-law,  Mr.  Brown,  and  his  brother-in- 
law,  Mr.  Farrell,  to  a  game  of  pool  in  the  billiard 
room.  He  retired  to  his  own  chamber,  his  wife 
accompaying  him.  He  slept  naturally  and 
peacefully  for  nearly  an  hour;  Mrs.  Ingersoll 
watching  by  his  side  while  he  slept.  About  a 
quarter  before  noon  he  awoke  and  left  his  bed 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  199 

to  dress,  and  needing  no  assistance  sat  in  his 
chair  to  put  on  his  shoes.  Mrs.  Farrell,  his 
sister-in-law,  and  Miss  Sharkey,  a  life-long  and 
devoted  member  of  his  household,  entered  the 
room.  Mrs.  Ingersoll  said:  "Do  not  dress, 
papa,  to  go  down  to  luncheon;  l  will  eat  here 
with  you."  "Oh,  no,"  he  replied,  "I  don't  want 
to  put  you  to  that  trouble."  "How  foolish,  Rob- 
ert," said  Mrs.  Farrell,  smiling;  "you  know  it^s 
never  a  trouble  to  us ;  you  know  you  have  often 
eaten  up-stairs  with  Eva."  The  Colonel  did 
not  speak,  but  looked  his  grateful  reply.  Mrs. 
Farrell  and  Miss  Sharkey  then  left  the  room. 
Mrs.  Ingersoll,  returning  to  her  husband,  said: 
"Papa,  you  are  not  feeling  well ;  let  me  see  your 
tongue."  He  put  it  out  with  a  smile,  saying, 
"You  are  always  wanting  to  see  my  tongue!" 
"Why,  papa,  it  is  coated;  I  must  give  you  some 
medicine."  He  looked  at  her  with  a  loving  gaze, 
slowly  closed  his  eyes,  dropped  his  head  upon 
his  breast,  and  without  a  struggle,  without  a 
tremor,  or  the  slightest  sign  of  suffering,  like 
one  falling  peacefully  to  sleep,  passed  away. 

This  was  on  the  21st  day  of  July,  1899. 
Had  he  lived  but  three  weeks  longer,  he  would 
have  completed  his  sixty-sixth  year.    The  im- 


20O  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

mediate  cause  of  his  death  was  angina  pectoris, 
a  foe  that  for  more  than  two  years  had  threat- 
ened his  life.  He  sedulously  kept  the  knowl- 
edge of  his  real  condition  from  his  family  and 
friends  lest  he  should  unduly  alarm  them,  and 
went  bravely  on,  thinking,  writing,  speaking 
and  doing  to  the  very  end. 

The  manner  of  his  going  was  well.  It  was 
a  fitting  close  to  such  a  life,  a  peaceful  ending 
of  his  day  of  toil.  It  was  as  he  wished.  He 
always  said  he  would  prefer  a  sudden  quench- 
ing of  the  spark.  If  he  had  chosen  the  manner 
of  its  going  out,  he  would  not  have  had  it  other- 
wise. In  their  beautiful  mansion  on  the  Hud- 
son, overlooking  from  its  height  a  panorama  of 
exquisite  loveliness ;  in  the  peaceful  quiet  of  his 
own  chamber;  sitting  in  his  accustomed  easy 
chair;  his  last  word  a  smiling  benediction;  his 
last  look  a  love-flash  in  the  answering  eyes  of 
her  whom  he  worshipped  above  all  gods — above 
all  other  beings — ^he  passed  into  "the  tongueless 
silence  of  his  dreamless  sleep." 

HIS  BODY  CREMATED. 

His  body  was  cremated.  The  quick,  refin- 
ing fires  rendered  back  at  once  the  uncorrupted 
and  incorruptible  residue.    This,  too,  was  as 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  201 

he  wished,  although  he  made  no  positive  request, 
leaving  the  matter  entirely  with  his  family. 
And  now  his  inurned  ashes  form  the  holy  altar 
of  their  home  temple.  Around  this  they 
gather  and  worship.  Here  they  offer  the 
oblation  of  undying  adoration.  Here  they  hold 
the  holiest  of  communions,  the  purest  of  soul 
interchanges,  the  vocal  dust  responding  to  their 
listening  love  in  sweetest  antiphones.  All  the 
wealth  of  all  the  worlds  would  not  measure  for 
them  the  worth  of  this  casket  that  holds  all  that 
was  earthly  of  the  greatest,  gentlest,  dearest, 
best  of  souls  that  ever  lived, — their  husband, 
father,  lover,  Robert  Green  Ingersoll. 

HIS  MEMORY  CROWNED. 

His  memory  will  be  crowned  with  never- 
fading  laurels.  His  fame  will  shine  with  ever- 
growing lustre  as  the  years  go  on.  To  count- 
less thousands  he  will  be  linked  with  all  their 
highest  and  noblest  ideals.  When  they  dream 
of  true  greatness,  his  career  will  inspire  them. 
When  they  covet  the  richest  prizes  of  life, — 
truth,  candor,  kindness,  **honor  bright,"  his  pre- 
cepts will  guide  them.  When  they  look  for  an 
example  of  manly  virtue,  knightly  courage,  mo- 


202  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

ral  exaltation,  his  presence  will  rise  before  them, 
the  champion  of  freedom,  the  lover  of  his  kind, 
the  holder  of  a  lighted  torch. 

BOUNDLESS. 

Standing  by  the  sea,  hoping  to  fill  the  vision 
with  the  boundless  view,  one  strains  the  eager 
gaze  around,  before,  beyond,  but  fails  to  grasp 
the  complete  whole.  Only  'Che  curving  lines  of 
near  or  farther  shore,  bits  of  the  smooth  or 
shelving  beach,  here  and  there  a  jutting  rock,  a 
million  crested  waves  and  myriads  of  merry  rip- 
pling crestlets  meet  the  sight,  while  the  infinite 
expanse  lies  far  and  far  without,  beyond  the 
reach  of  finite  eye.  So  partly  only  can  the 
farthest  reaching  human  ken  perceive  and 
Rnow  the  boundless  Ingersoll. 

TOWERING. 

At  sunrise,  on  a  lofty  peak,  I  have  seen  a 
mighty  mountain  cast  its  shadowed  profile  on 
the  western  plain  far  out  to  the  horizon's  bound, 
whence,  having  no  farther  earthward  scope  for 
its  projecting  form,  it  has  mounted  to  the  sky 
and  lifted  its  majestic  outline  to  the  zenith, — 
a  pyramid  rising  from  earth  to  heaven.  So  it 
has  seemed  to  me  Mr.  Ingersoll's  genius,  shone 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  203 

upon  by  the  rising  sun  of  Truth,  has  filled  the 
intellectual  plain  and  mounted  to  the  highest 
human  heights.  From  such  a  summit  he  has 
looked  upon  the  world  beneath, — seen  all  life, 
known  all  men,  scanned  all  facts,  weighed  all 
faiths,  all  fancies,  all  philosophies,  and  sent  his 
message  down  of  Love  and  Hope  and  Truth, — 
of  perfect  Love  that  casts  out  Fear,  of  Hope 
that  maketh  not  ashamed,  and  Truth  that  when 
perceived  shall  make  man  free. 

PEERLESS. 

When  the  record  is  made  up,  and  truthful 
history  shall  assign  to  each  his  niche  of  honor  in 
the  Hall  of  Fame,  it  will  be  found  that  Robert  G. 
Ingersoll  fills  a  place  high  up  among  the  might- 
iest of  the  race.  It  will  surely  write  him  first 
of  orators, — the  Demosthenes  of  his  day;  prince 
of  righteous  satire, — the  American  Voltaire; 
Emancipator  of  the  minds  of  men, — the  Intel- 
lectual Lincoln  of  his  time ;  himself  "The  Plumed 
Knight"  flinging  down  the  gauntlet  of  enlight- 
ened Truth  to  ignorant  Error;  piercing  with 
shining  lance  the  armor  of  Superstition;  un- 
masking with  trenchant  blade  the  face  of  False- 
hood, and  with  heavy  battle  axe  shattering  dun- 


204  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

geon  doors  and  opening  wide  at  last  the  way  to 
"Liberty  for  Man,  Woman  and  Child. "J 

TRULY  RELIGIOUS. 

In  a  beautiful  tribute  by  one  of  his  grand- 
cHldren,  Eva  Ingersoll-Brown — that  "daugh- 
ter's babe  upon  his  knees," — we  may  read  a 
faithful  record,  a  true  echo  of  his  own  voice.  In 
a  preface  to  "The  Ingersoll  Birthday  Book,"  pub- 
lished by  The  Truth  Seeker  Company^  this 
"babe,"  while  yet  a  maiden,  wrote: 

"Ingersoll  was,  I  believe,  the  most  profoundly 
ethical,  the  most  deeply  spiritual,  the  most  truly 
religious  of  men.  His  was  the  only  real  religion, 
— the  religion  of  goodness,  of  justice  and  of 
mercy, — the  religion  of  Humanity  and  His  whole 
life  was  one  heroic  consecration  to  the  further- 
ance of  his  religion.  I  beg  leave  to  repeat  this 
all-important  fact:  Ingersoll  was  a  religious 
man — religious  in  the  highest  and  holiest,  the 
only  true  sense  of  the  term, — religious  in  his  ir- 
repressible and  matchless  zeal  for  truth, — reli- 
gious in  his  love  for  and  trust  in  humanity, — re- 
ligious in  his  fine,  intrepid  fealty  to  facts,  to  jus- 
tice and  to  rectitude, — religious  in  his  tempera- 
ment of  storm  and  fire, — religious  in  his  splendid 
scorn  of  wrong,  in  his  superb  capacity  for  wrath 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  205 

and  for  rebellion, — and  religious  in  his  peerless 
power  for  tenderness,  for  pity,  and  for  love ;  re- 
ligious even  in  his  fearless  enmity  to  creed  and 
cant,  to  every  form  of  futile  dogma,  ignorant 
theology  and  childish  faith — to  base  hypocrisy 
that  masquerades  as  virtue  and  as  truth." 

Quoting  his  own  words,  which  we  have 
already  given,  but  which  cannot  be  too  often 
repeated  or  emphasized,  she  gives  us  this  sum- 
mary of  what  he  believed  true  religion  to  be: 

"To  love  justice,  to  long  for  the  right,  to  love 
mercy,  to  pity  the  suffering,  to  assist  the  weak, 
to  forget  wrongs  and  remember  benefits — to  love 
the  truth,  to  be  sincere,  to  utter  honest  words, 
to  love  liberty,  to  wage  relentless  war  against 
slavery  in  all  its  forms,  to  love  wife  and  child 
and  friend,  to  make  a  happy  home,  to  love  the 
beautiful  in  art,  in  nature,  to  cultivate  the  mind, 
to  be  familiar  with  the  mighty  thoughts  that 
genius  has  expressed,  the  noble  deeds  of  all  the 
world,  to  cultivate  courage  and  cheerfulness,  to 
make  others  happy,  to  fill  life  with  the  splendor 
of  generous  deeds,  the  warmth  of  loving  words, 
to  discard  error,  to  destroy  prejudice,  to  receive 
new  truths  in  gladness,  to  cultivate  hope,  to  see 
the  calm  beyond  the  storm,  the  dawn  beyond  the 
^'.night,  to  do  the  best  that  can  be  done  and  then 


206  ROBERT  G.  INGERSOLL 

to  be  resigned — this  is  the  religion  of  reason, 
the  creed  of  science.  This  satisfies  the  brain  and 
heart." 

Following  this  she  writes : 

"A  more  inspiring,  noble  and  complete 
declaration  of  faith  was  never  born  of  human 
heart  and  brain.  And,  above  all,  be  it  said,  to 
the  eternal  glory  of  this  transcendent  man,  that 
he  lived  in  absolute  accord  with  these  high  ideals. 
His  life  was  one  unbroken  melody  of  thought  and 
deed,  of  heart  and  hand,  of  will  and  act, — one 
sublime  symphony  of  conscience  and  of  conduct, 
of  precept  and  practice — one  lofty  consecration 
to  the  service  of  his  fellow-men." 

L'ENVOI. 

And  now,  "thou  great  and  complete  man," 
farewell !  Wher'e'er  thou  art,  in  all  the  "shore- 
less vast,"  it  must  be  well  with  thee,  for  thou 
thyself  did'st  well,  and  now  hast  got  thy  meed. 
Believe  and  know,  0  lofty  soul!  that  loyal 
friends  remaining  here  still  cherish  thee  and  all 
thy  words  and  deeds,  and  fondly  hope  that  when 
it  comes  their  turn  to  go,  thou  wilt  with  open 
arms  receive  and  clasp  them  to  thy  waiting 
heart;  that  they  and  thou,  with  all  true  souls 


AN  INTIMATE  VIEW  207 

that  loved  thee  here  together  joined,  may'st  be 
and  go  for  aye  through  all  the  worlds!  This 
Hope  sustains  and  blesses  them, — completes,  ful- 
fills thy  Joy.    Again,  farewell!    Farewell! 


•xsaa  ssaiaoiHd  sih 


w 


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